IC-NRLF 


.;•,,.:;:     >r'fTfflHjnff?T 

MODERN 

AMERICAN 
PROSE 

SELECTIONS 


BYRON  J.  REES 


GIFT  OF 


A  .  VjL 


MODERN 

AMERICAN   PROSE 
SELECTIONS 


EDITED   BY 

BYRON  JOHNSON  REES 

PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH  AT  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  HOWE 
1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  HOWE,  INC, 


T  H  E  •  P  t  I  M  P  T  O  N  •  P  K  E  S  S 
NORWOOD-MASS- U.  S    A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi 

Abraham  Lincoln Theodore  Roosevelt      .     .  3 

American  Tradition     ....     Franklin  K.  Lane    ...  8 

America's  Heritage      ....     Franklin  K.  Lane    ...  17 
Address  at  the  College  of  the  Holy 

Cross Calvin  Coolidge       ...  25 

Our  Future  Immigration  Policy  .     Frederic  C.  Howe   ...  31 
A  New  Relationship  between  Capi 
tal  and  Labor John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.     .  42 

My  Uncle Alvin  Johnson    .     .     .     ,  48 

When  a  Man  Comes  to  Himself  .     Woodrow  Wilson     ...  53 

Education  through  Occupations    .     William  Lowe  Bryan     .     .  68 

The  Fallow John  Agricola     ....  81 

Writing  and  Reading  ....     John  Matthews  Manly  and 

Edith  Rickert      ...  87 

James  Russell  Lowell  .     .     .          Bliss  Perry 94 

The  Education  of  Henry  Adams  .     Carl  Becker 109 

The  Struggle  for  an  Education     .     Booker  T.  Washington       .  119 
Entering  Journalism   ....     Jacob  A.  Riis     ...     .128 

Bound  Coastwise Ralph  D.  Paine       .     .     .  135 

The  Democratization  of  the  Auto 
mobile      Burton  J.  Hendrick      .     .  145 

Traveling  Afoot John  Finley 157 

Old  Boats Walter  Prichard  Eaton      .  165 

Zeppelinitis Philip  Littell      .     .     .     .  177 


4C4068 


TO 
E.,   C.,  AND  H. 

STUDENTS  AND  FRIENDS 


PREFACE 

As  the  reader,  if  he  wishes,  may  discover  without  undue 
delay,  the  little  volume  of  modern  prose  selections  that 
he  has  before  him  is  the  result  of  no  ambitious  or  pre 
tentious  design.  It  is  not  a  collection  of  the  best  things 
that  have  lately  been  known  and  thought  in  the  American 
world;  it  is  not  an  anthology  in  which  "all  our  best 
authors"  are  represented  by  striking  or  celebrated  pas 
sages.  The  editor  planned  nothing  either  so  precious  or 
so  eclectic.  His  purpose  rather  was  to  bring  together 
some  twenty  examples  of  typical  contemporary  prose,  in 
which  writers  who  know  whereof  they  write  discuss 
certain  present-day  themes  in  readable  fashion.  In 
choosing  material  he  has  sought  to  include  nothing  merely 
because  of  the  name  of  the  author,  and  he  has  demanded 
of  each  selection  that  it  should  be  of  such  a  character, 
both  in  subject  and  style,  as  to  impress  normal  and 
wholesome  Americans  as  well  worth  reading. 

The  earlier  selections  —  President  Roosevelt's  noble 
eulogy  upon  Lincoln,  Secretary  Lane's  two  addresses  on 
American  tradition  and  heritage,  and  Governor  Coolidge's 
address  at  Holy  Cross  —  remind  the  reader  of  the  high 
significance  of  our  national  past  and  indicate  the  promise 
of  a  rightly  apprehended  future.  There  follow  two 
articles  —  "Our  Future  Immigration  Policy,"  by  Com 
missioner  Frederic  C.  Howe,  and  "A  New  Relationship 
between  Capital  and  Labor,"  by  Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller, 
Jr.  —  on  subjects  that  press  for  earnest  consideration  on 
the  part  of  all  who  are  intent  upon  the  solution  of  our 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

problems.  Mr.  Alvin  Johnson's  playful  yet  serious  essay 
on  "the  biggest,  kindliest,  most  honest  and  honorable 
tribal  head  that  ever  lived"  completes  the  group  of  what 
may  be  termed  "Americanization"  Papers. 

Perhaps  the  best  of  the  many  magazine  articles  that 
President  Wilson  has  written  is  that  which  serves  as  a 
link  —  for  those  to  whom  links,  even  in  a  miscellany,  are 
a  satisfaction  —  between  the  earlier  selections  and  those 
that  follow.  "When  a  Man  Comes  to  Himself,"  express 
ing  as  it  does  in  English  of  distinction  the  best  thought 
of  the  best  Americans  concerning  the  individual's  rela 
tion  to  society  and  to  the  state,  will  probably  be  widely 
read,  with  attention  and  gratitude,  for  many  years  to 
come.  Associated  with  Mr.  Wilson's  article  are  three 
selections  presenting  various  aspects  of  self-realization  in 
education.  One  of  them,  "The  Fallow,"  deals  in  signally 
happy  manner  with  the  insistent  and  vital  question  of 
the  study  of  the  Classics. 

That  scholarly  and  competent  literary  criticism  need 
not  be  dull  or  deficient  in  charm  is  obvious  from  an 
examination  of  Mr.  Bliss  Perry's  masterly  study  of  James 
Russell  Lowell  and  Mr.  Carl  Becker's  subtle  and  dis 
criminating  analysis  of  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams. 
Both  writers  attack  subjects  of  considerable  complexity 
and  difficulty,  and  both  succeed  in  clarifying  the  thought 
of  the  discerning  reader  and  inducing  in  him  an  exhilarat 
ing  sense  of  mental  and  spiritual  enlargement. 

From  the  many  notable  autobiographies  that  have 
appeared  during  recent  years  the  editor  has  chosen  two 
from  which  to  reprint  brief  passages.  The  first  is 
Booker  T.  Washington's  Up  from  Slavery,  the  simple  and 
straightforward  personal  narrative  of  one  whom  all  must 
now  concede  to  have  been  a  very  great  man;  the  other 
is  that  human  and  poignant  epic  of  the  stranger  from 
Denmark  who  became  one  of  us  and  of  whom  we  as 


PREFACE  ix 

a  people  are  tenderly  proud.  The  Making  of  an  Amer 
ican  is  in  some  ways  a  unique  book;  concrete,  specific, 
self-revealing  and  yet  dignified;  a  book  that  one  could 
wish  that  every  American  might  know. 

Also  concrete  and  specific  are  the  chapters  from  Mr. 
Ralph  D.  Paine  and  Mr.  Burton  J.  Hendrick.  In  "Bound 
Coastwise"  Mr.  Paine  has  treated,  with  knowledge,  sym 
pathy,  and  imagination,  an  important  phase  of  our  com 
mercial  life.  As  an  example  of  narrative-exposition, 
matter-of-fact  yet  touched  with  the  romance  of  those  who 
"go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,"  the  excerpt  is  thoroughly 
admirable.  Mr.  Hendrick,  in  entertaining  and  profitable 
wise,  tells  the  story  of  what  he  considers  "probably 
America's  greatest  manufacturing  exploit." 

Dr.  Finley  "starts  the  imagination  out  upon  the  road" 
and  "invites  to  the  open  spaces,"  especially  to  those 
undisturbed  by  "the  flying  automobile."  "Walking,"  he 
says  eagerly,  "is  not  only  a  joy  in  itself,  but  it  gives 
an  intimacy  with  the  sacred  things  and  the  primal  things 
of  earth  that  are  not  revealed  to  those  who  rush  by  on 
wheels." 

In  "Old  Boats"  Mr.  Walter  Prichard  Eaton,  in  a 
manner  of  writing  that  has  of  late  years  won  him  a 
large  place  in  the  hearts  of  readers,  thoughtfully  contem 
plates  the  abandoned  farmhouse,  and  lingers  wistfully  be 
side  the  beached  and  crumbling  craft  of  the  "unplumb'd, 
salt,  estranging  sea."  Few  can  read,  or,  better,  hear 
read,  his  closing  paragraph  without  thrilling  to  that  "other 
harmony  of  prose."  That  such  a  cadenced  and  haunting 
passage  should  have  been  published  as  recently  as  1917 
should  assure  the  doubter  that  there  is  still  amongst  us 
a  taste  for  the  beautiful.  "I  live  inland  now,  far  from 
the  smell  of  salt  water  and  the  sight  of  sails.  Yet  some 
times  there  comes  over  me  a  longing  for  the  sea  as 
irresistible  as  the  lust  for  salt  which  stampedes  the 


x  PREFACE 

reindeer  of  the  north.  I  must  gaze  on  the  unbroken 
world-rim,  I  must  feel  the  sting  of  spray,  I  must  hear  the 
rhythmic  crash  and  roar  of  breakers  and  watch  the 
sea-weed  rise  and  fall  where  the  green  waves  lift  against 
the  rocks.  Once  in  so  often  I  must  ride  those  waves  with 
cleated  sheet  and  tugging  tiller,  and  hear  the  soft  hissing 
song  of  the  water  on  the  rail.  And  'my  day  of  mercy' 
is  not  complete  till  I  have  seen  some  old  boat,  her 
seafaring  done,  heeled  over  on  the  beach  or  amid  the 
fragrant  sedges,  a  mute  and  wistful  witness  to  the  ro 
mance  of  the  deep,  the  blue  and  restless  deep  where 
man  has  adventured  in  craft  his  hands  have  made  since 
the  earliest  sun  of  history,  and  whereon  he  will  adven 
ture,  ardently  and  insecure,  till  the  last  syllable  of 
recorded  time." 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

The  editor's  thanks  are  due  to  the  holders  of  copyrights 
who  have  generously  permitted  him  to  include  selections 
from  books  and  magazines  published  by  them.  More 
particularly  he  would  express  his  gratitude  to  the  Yale 
University  Press,  to  Harper  and  Brothers,  to  Henry 
Holt  and  Co.,  to  Doubleday,  Page  and  Co.,  to  the 
Macmillan  Company,  to  the  Century  Company,  to 
the  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company,  to  the  P.  F.  Collier 
and  Son  Company,  to  the  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  to 
the  Outlook  Company,  to  the  Indiana  University  Book 
store,  to  the  editor  of  the  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine, 
to  the  editors  of  the  American  Historical  Review,  and  to 
Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe.  Specific  indications  as  to 
the  extent  of  the  editor's  borrowing  will  be  found  with 
the  selections. 

Authors  from  whose  work  the  editor  has  wished  to 
quote  have  been  invariably  gracious.  To  President  Wil 
son  for  his  essay  "When  a  Man  Conies  to  Himself,"  to 
Governor  Coolidge  for  his  Holy  Cross  College  address, 
to  Secretary  Lane  for  two  addresses,  and  to  Commissioner 
Howe  for  his  article  on  immigration,  he  would  express  his 
gratitude.  President  John  Finley,  Mr.  Walter  Prichard 
Eaton,  Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  President  W.  L. 
Bryan,  Mr.  Alvin  Johnson,  Mr.  John  Matthews  Manly, 
Miss  Edith  Rickert,  Mr.  Carl  Becker,  Mr.  Ralph  D. 
Paine,  Mr.  Burton  J.  Hendrick,  Mr.  Philip  Littell,  and 
Mr.  Bliss  Perry  have  freely  accorded  permission  to  re 
print  the  selections  that  bear  their  names.  Mrs.  Jacob 

xi 


xii  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

A.  Riis  and  Mr.  R.  W.  Riis  have  courteously  granted 
the  use  of  the  excerpt  from  The  Making  of  an  American. 
The  editors  of  The  New  Republic  and  the  editors  of  The 
University  of  Virginia  Alumni  Bulletin  have  kindly  con 
sented  to  the  reprinting  of  articles  that  originally  ap 
peared  in  their  periodicals.  To  Mr.  Will  D.  Howe,  whose 
assistance  has  been  constant  and  invaluable,  the  editor 
would  extend  his  hearty  thanks. 


MODERN  AMERICAN  PROSE 
SELECTIONS 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN1 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

We  have  met  here  to  celebrate  the  hundredth  anniver 
sary  of  the  birth  of  one  of  the  two  greatest  Americans;  of 
one  of  the  two  or  three  greatest  men  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  of  one  of  the  greatest  men  in  the  world's  his 
tory.  This  rail-splitter,  this  boy  who  passed  his  un 
gainly  youth  in  the  dire  poverty  of  the  poorest  of  the 
frontier  folk,  whose  rise  was  by  weary  and  painful 
labor,  lived  to  lead  his  people  through  the  burning 
flames  of  a  struggle  from  which  the  nation  emerged, 
purified  as  by  fire,  born  anew  to  a  loftier  life. 

After  long  years  of  iron  effort,  and  of  failure  that  came 
more  often  than  victory,  he  at  last  rose  to  the  leader 
ship  of  the  Republic,  at  the  moment  when  that  leader 
ship  had  become  the  stupendous  world-task  of  the  time. 
He  grew  to  know  greatness,  but  never  ease.  Success 
came  to  him,  but  never  happiness,  save  that  which 
springs  from  doing  well  a  painful  and  a  vital  task. 
Power  was  his,  but  not  pleasure.  The  furrows  deep 
ened  on  his  brow,  but  his  eyes  were  undimmed  by  either 
hate  or  fear.  His  gaunt  shoulders  were  bowed,  but  his 
steel  thews  never  faltered  as  he  bore  for  a  burden  the 
destinies  of  his  people.  His  great  and  tender  heart 
shrank  from  giving  pain;  and  the  task  allotted  him 
was  to  pour  out  like  water  the  life-blood  of  the  young 

1  Address  delivered  at  Lincoln's  birthplace,  Hodgenville,  Ky., 
Feb.  12,  1909.  Reprinted  from  Collier's  Weekly,  issue  of  Feb.  13, 
1909.  By  permission.  Copyright,  1909,  P.  F.  Collier  &  Son  Co. 

3 


4  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

men,  and  to  feel  in  his  every  fibre  the  sorrow  of  the 
women.  Disaster  saddened  but  never  dismayed  him. 

As  the  red  years  of  war  went  by  they  found  him  ever 
doing  his  duty  in  the  present,  ever  facing  the  future 
with  fearless  front,  high  of  heart,  and  dauntless  of  soul. 
Unbroken  by  hatred,  unshaken  by  scorn,  he  worked 
and  suffered  for  the  people.  Triumph  was  his  at  the 
last;  and  barely  had  he  tasted  it  before  murder  found 
him,  and  the  kindly,  patient,  fearless  eyes  were  closed 
forever. 

As  a  people  we  are  indeed  beyond  measure  fortunate 
in  the  characters  of  the  two  greatest  of  our  public  men, 
Washington  and  Lincoln.  Widely  though  they  differed 
in  externals,  the  Virginia  landed  gentleman  and  the  Ken 
tucky  backwoodsman,  they  were  alike  in  essentials,  they 
were  alike  in  the  great  qualities  which  made  each  able 
to  do  service  to  his  nation  and  to  all  mankind  such  as 
no  other  man  of  his  generation  could  or  did  render. 
Each  had  lofty  ideals,  but  each  in  striving  to  attain  these 
lofty  ideals  was  guided  by  the  soundest  common  sense. 
Each  possessed  inflexible  courage  in  adversity,  and  a 
soul  wholly  unspoiled  by  prosperity.  Each  possessed  all 
the  gentler  virtues  commonly  exhibited  by  good  men 
who  lack  rugged  strength  of  character.  Each  possessed 
also  all  the  strong  qualities  commonly  exhibited  by  those 
towering  masters  of  mankind  who  have  too  often  shown 
themselves  devoid  of  so  much  as  the  understanding  of 
the  words  by  which  we  signify  the  qualities  of  duty,  of 
mercy,  of  devotion  to  the  right,  of  lofty  disinterestedness 
in  battling  for  the  good  of  others. 

There  have  been  other  men  as  great  and  other  men  as 
good;  but  in  all  the  history  of  mankind  there  are  no 
other  two  great  men  as  good  as  these,  no  other  two  good 
men  as  great.  Widely  though  the  problems  of  to-day 
differ  from  the  problems  set  for  solution  to  Washington 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  5 

when  he  founded  this  nation,  to  Lincoln  when  he  saved 
it  and  freed  the  slave,  yet  the  qualities  they  showed  in 
meeting  these  problems  are  exactly  the  same  as  those 
we  should  show  in  doing  our  work  to-day. 

Lincoln  saw  into  the  future  with  the  prophetic  imagi 
nation  usually  vouchsafed  only  to  the  poet  and  the  seer. 
He  had  in  him  all  the  lift  toward  greatness  of  the  vision 
ary,  without  any  of  the  visionary's  fanaticism  or  egotism, 
without  any  of  the  visionary's  narrow  jealousy  of  the 
practical  man  and  inability  to  strive  in  practical  fashion 
for  the  realization  of  an  ideal.  He  had  the  practical 
man's  hard  common  sense  and  willingness  to  adapt  means 
to  ends;  but  there  was  in  him  none  of  that  morbid 
growth  of  mind  and  soul  which  blinds  so  many  practical 
men  to  the  higher  aims  of  life.  No  more  practical  man 
ever  lived  than  this  homely  backwoods  idealist;  but  he 
had  nothing  in  common  with  those  practical  men  whose 
consciences  are  warped  until  they  fail  to  distinguish  be 
tween  good  and  evil,  fail  to  understand  that  strength, 
ability,  shrewdness,  whether  in  the  world  of  business  or 
of  politics,  only  serve  to  make  their  possessor  a  more 
noxious,  a  more  evil,  member  of  the  community  if  they 
are  not  guided  and  controlled  by  a  fine  and  high  moral 
sense. 

We  of  this  day  must  try  to  solve  many  social  and  in 
dustrial  problems,  requiring  to  an  especial  degree  the 
combination  of  indomitable  resolution  with  cool-headed 
sanity.  We  can  profit  by  the  way  in  which  Lincoln 
used  both  these  traits  as  he  strove  for  reform.  We  can 
learn  much  of  value  from  the  very  attacks  which  follow 
ing  that  course  brought  upon  his  head,  attacks  alike  by 
the  extremists  of  revolution  and  by  the  extremists  of 
reaction.  He  never  wavered  in  devotion  to  his  princi 
ples,  in  his  love  for  the  Union,  and  in  his  abhorrence 
of  slavery.  Timid  and  lukewarm  people  were  always 


6  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

denouncing  him  because  he  was  too  extreme;  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  he  never  went  to  extremes,  he  worked  step 
by  step;  and  because  of  this  the  extremists  hated  and 
denounced  him  with  a  fervor  which  now  seems  to  us  fan 
tastic  in  its  deification  of  the  unreal  and  the  impossible. 
At  the  very  time  when  one  side  was  holding  him  up  as 
the  apostle  of  social  revolution  because  he  was  against 
slavery,  the  leading  abolitionist  denounced  him  as  the 
"slave  hound  of  Illinois."  When  he  was  the  second  time 
candidate  for  President,  the  majority  of  his  opponents 
attacked  him  because  of  what  they  termed  his  extreme 
radicalism,  while  a  minority  threatened  to  bolt  his  nom 
ination  because  he  was  not  radical  enough.  He  had  con 
tinually  to  check  those  who  wished  to  go  forward  too 
fast,  at  the  very  time  that  he  overrode  the  opposition 
of  those  who  wished  not  to  go  forward  at  all.  The  goal 
was  never  dim  before  his  vision;  but  he  picked  his  way 
cautiously,  without  either  halt  or  hurry,  as  he  strode 
toward  it,  through  such  a  morass  of  difficulty  that  no 
man  of  less  courage  would  have  attempted  it,  while  it 
would  surely  have  overwhelmed  any  man  of  judgment 
less  serene. 

Yet  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  thing  of  all,  and, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  America  of  to-day  and  of  the 
future,  the  most  vitally  important,  was  the  extraordinary 
way  in  which  Lincoln  could  fight  valiantly  against  what 
he  deemed  wrong  and  yet  preserve  undiminished  his  love 
and  respect  for  the  brother  from  whom  he  differed.  In 
the  hour  of  a  triumph  that  would  have  turned  any 
weaker  man's  head,  in  the  heat  of  a  struggle  which 
spurred  many  a  good  man  to  dreadful  vindictiveness,  he 
said  truthfully  that  so  long  as  he  had  been  in  his  office 
he  had  never  willingly  planted  a  thorn  in  any  man's 
bosom,  and  besought  his  supporters  to  study  the  inci 
dents  of  the  trial  through  which  they  were  passing  as 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  7 

philosophy  from  which  to  learn  wisdom  and  not  as 
wrongs  to  be  avenged;  ending  with  the  solemn  exhorta 
tion  that,  as  the  strife  was  over,  all  should  reunite  in  a 
common  effort  to  save  their  common  country. 

He  lived  in  days  that  were  great  and  terrible,  when 
brother  fought  against  brother  for  what  each  sincerely 
deemed  to  be  the  right.  In  a  contest  so  grim  the  strong 
men  who  alone  can  carry  it  through  are  rarely  able  to  do 
justice  to  the  deep  convictions  of  those  with  whom  they 
grapple  in  mortal  strife.  At  such  times  men  see  through 
a  glass  darkly;  to  only  the  rarest  and  loftiest  spirits  is 
vouchsafed  that  clear  vision  which  gradually  comes  to 
all,  even  the  lesser,  as  the  struggle  fades  into  distance, 
and  wounds  are  forgotten,  and  peace  creeps  back  to  the 
hearts  that  were  hurt. 

But  to  Lincoln  was  given  this  supreme  vision.  He  did 
not  hate  the  man  from  whom  he  differed.  Weakness  was 
as  foreign  as  wickedness  to  his  strong,  gentle  nature ;  but 
his  courage  was  of  a  quality  so  high  that  it  needed  no 
bolstering  of  dark  passion.  He  saw  clearly  that  the  same 
high  qualities,  the  same  courage,  and  willingness  for  self- 
sacrifice,  and  devotion  to  the  right  as  it  was  given  them  to 
see  the  right,  belonged  both  to  the  men  of  the  North  and 
to  the  men  of  the  South.  As  the  years  roll  by,  and  as 
all  of  us,  wherever  we  dwell,  grow  to  feel  an  equal  pride 
in  the  valor  and  self-devotion,  alike  of  the  men  who  wore 
the  blue  and  the  men  who  wore  the  gray,  so  this  whole 
nation  will  grow  to  feel  a  peculiar  sense  of  pride  in  the 
man  whose  blood  was  shed  for  the  union  of  his  people 
and  for  the  freedom  of  a  race;  the  lover  of  his  country 
and  of  all  mankind;  the  mightiest  of  the  mighty  men 
who  mastered  the  mighty  days,  Abraham  Lincoln. 


AMERICAN    TRADITION1 
FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 

It  has  not  been  an  easy  task  for  me  to  decide  upon 
a  theme  for  discussion  to-day.  I  know  that  I  can  tell 
you  little  of  Washington  that  would  be  new,  and  the 
thought  has  come  to  me  that  perhaps  you  would  be 
interested  in  what  might  be  called  a  western  view  of 
American  tradition,  for  I  come  from  the  other  side  of 
this  continent  where  all  of  our  traditions  are  as  yet 
articles  of  transcontinental  traffic,  and  you  are  here  in 
the  very  heart  of  tradition,  the  sacred  seat  of  our  noblest 
memories. 

No  doubt  you  sometimes  think  that  we  are  reckless  of 
the  wisdom  of  our  forebears;  while  we  at  times  have  been 
heard  to  say  that  you  live  too  securely  in  that  passion 
for  the  past  which  makes  men  mellow  but  unmodern. 

When  you  see  the  West  adopting  or  urging  such 
measures  as  presidential  primaries,  the  election  of  United 
States  Senators  by  popular  vote,  the  initiative,  the  refer 
endum  and  the  recall  as  means  supplementary  to  repre 
sentative  government,  you  shudder  in  your  dignified  way 
no  doubt,  at  the  audacity  and  irreverence  of  your  crude 
countrymen.  They  must  be  in  your  eyes  as  far  from 
grace  as  that  American  who  visited  one  of  the  ancient 

1  Address  delivered  by  Secretary  Lane  at  the  University  of 
Virginia,  Feb.  22,  1912.  Reprinted  from  the  University  of  Vir 
ginia  Alumni  Bulletin,  and  from  The  American  Spirit,  by  Franklin 
K.  Lane  (Copyright,  1918,  by  the  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co.).  By 
permission  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers. 

8 


AMERICAN    TRADITION  9 

temples  of  India.  After  a  long  journey  through  winding 
corridors  of  marble,  he  was  brought  to  a  single  flickering 
light  set  in  a  jeweled  recess  in  the  wall.  "And  what  is 
this?"  said  the  tourist.  "That,  sir,"  replied  the  guide, 
"is  the  sacred  fire  which  was  lighted  2,000  years  ago  and 
never  has  been  out."  "Never  been  out?  What  nonsense! 
Poof!  Well,  the  blamed  thing's  out  now."  This  wild 
Westerner  doubtless  typifies  those  who  without  heed  and 
in  their  hot-headed  and  fanatical  worship  of  change 
would  destroy  the  very  light  of  our  civilization.  But  let 
me  remind  you  that  all  fanaticism  is  not  radical.  There 
is  a  fanaticism  that  is  conservative,  a  reverence  for  things 
as  they  are  that  is  no  less  destructive.  Some  years  ago 
I  visited  a  fishing  village  in  Canada  peopled  by  Scotch 
men  who  had  immigrated  in  the  early  part  of  the  nine 
teenth  century.  It  was  a  place  named  Ingonish  in  Cape 
Breton,  a  rugged  spot  that  looks  directly  upon  the 
Atlantic  at  its  cruelest  point.  One  day  I  fell  into  talk 
with  a  fisherman  —  a  very  model  of  a  tawny-haired 
viking.  He  told  me  that  from  his  fishing  and  his  farming 
he  made  some  $300  a  year.  "Why  not  come  over  into 
my  country,"  I  said,  "where  you  may  make  that  in  a 
month?"  There  came  over  his  face  a  look  of  humiliation 
as  he  replied,  "No,  I  could  not."  "Why  not?"  I  asked. 
"Because,"  said  he,  brushing  his  hand  across  his  sea- 
burnt  beard,  "because  I  can  neither  read  nor  write." 
"And  why,"  said  I,  "haven't  you  learned?  There  are 
schools  here."  "Yes,  there  are  schools,  but  my  father 
could  not  read  or  write,  and  I  would  have  felt  that  I 
was  putting  a  shame  upon  the  old  man  if  I  had  learned 
to  do  something  he  could  not  do."  Splendid,  wasn't  it! 
He  would  not  do  what  his  father  could  not  do.  Fine! 
Fine  as  the  spirit  of  any  man  with  a  sentiment  which 
holds  him  back  from  leading  a  full,  rich  life.  Yet  can 
you  conceive  a  nation  of  such  men  —  idolizing  what  has 


io  FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 

been,  blind  to  the  great  vision  of  the  future,  fettered 
by  the  chains  of  the  past,  gripped  and  held  fast  in  the 
hand  of  the  dead,  a  nation  of  traditionalists,  unable  to 
meet  the  needs  of  a  new  day,  serene,  no  doubt  self-suffi 
cient,  but  coming  how  far  short  of  realizing  that  ideal  of 
those  who  praise  their  God  for  that  they  serve  his  world! 
I  have  given  the  two  extremes;  now  let  us  return  to 
our  point  of  departure,  and  the  first  question  to  be 
asked  is,  "What  are  the  traditions  of  our  people?"  This 
nation  is  not  as  it  was  one  hundred  and  thirty-odd 
years  ago  when  we  asserted  the  traditional  right  of 
Anglo-Saxons  to  rebel  against  injustice.  We  have 
traveled  centuries  and  centuries  since  then  —  measured 
in  events,  in  achievements,  in  depth  of  insight  into  the 
secrets  of  nature,  in  breadth  of  view,  in  sweep  of  sym 
pathy,  and  in  the  rise  of  ennobling  hope.  Physically 
we  are  to-day  nearer  to  China  than  we  were  then  to 
Ohio.  Socially,  industrially,  commercially  the  wide 
world  is  almost  a  unit.  And  these  thirteen  states  have 
spread  across  a  continent  to  which  have  been  gathered 
the  peoples  of  the  earth.  We  are  the  "heirs  of  all 
the  ages."  Our  inheritance  of  tradition  is  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  people,  for  we  trace  back  not  alone  to 
King  John  signing  the  Magna  Charta  in  that  little  stone 
hut  by  the  riverside,  but  to  Brutus  standing  beside  the 
slain  Caesar,  to  Charles  Martel  with  his  battle-axe  raised 
against  the  advancing  horde  of  an  old-world  civilization, 
to  Martin  Luther  declaring  his  square-jawed  policy  of 
religious  liberty,  to  Columbus  in  the  prow  of  his  boat 
crying  to  his  disheartened  crew,  "Sail  on,  sail  on,  and 
on!"  Irishman,  Greek,  Slav,  and  Sicilian  —  all  the  na 
tions  of  the  world  have  poured  their  hopes  and  their 
history  into  this  great  melting  pot,  and  the  product  will 
be  —  in  fact,  is  —  a  civilization  that  is  new  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  the  blend  of  many,  and  yet  is  as  old  as  the 
Egyptians. 


AMERICAN    TRADITION  n 

Surely  the  real  tradition  of  such  a  people  is  not  any 
one  way  of  doing  a  certain  thing;  certainly  not  any  set 
and  unalterable  plan  of  procedure  in  affairs,  nor  even 
any  fixed  phrase  expressive  of  a  general  philosophy 
unless  it  comes  from  the  universal  heart  of  this  strange 
new  people.  Why  are  we  here?  What  is  our  purpose? 
These  questions  will  give  you  the  tradition  of  the  Ameri 
can  people,  our  supreme  tradition  —  the  one  into  which 
all  others  fall,  and  a  part  of  which  they  are  —  the  right 
of  man  to  oppose  injustice.  There  follow  from  this  the 
right  of  man  to  govern  himself,  the  right  of  property 
and  to  personal  liberty,  the  right  to  freedom  of  speech, 
the  right  to  make  of  himself  all  that  nature  will  permit, 
the  right  to  be  one  of  many  in  creating  a  national  life 
that  will  realize  those  hopes  which  singly  could  not 
be  achieved. 

Is  there  any  other  tradition  so  sacred  as  this  —  so 
much  a  part  of  ourselves  —  this  hatred  of  injustice?  It 
carries  in  its  bosom  all  the  past  that  inspires  our  people. 
Their  spirit  of  unrest  under  wrong  has  lighted  the  way 
for  the  nations  of  the  world.  It  is  not  seen  alone  in 
Kansas  and  in  California,  but  in  England,  where  a 
Liberal  Ministry  has  made  a  beginning  at  the  restoration 
of  the  land  to  the  people ;  in  Germany,  where  the  citizen 
is  fighting  his  way  up  to  power;  in  Portugal,  where  a 
university  professor  sits  in  the  chair  a  king  so  lately 
occupied;  in  Russia,  emerging  from  the  Middle  Ages, 
with  her  groping  Douma;  in  Persia,  from  which  young 
Shuster  was  so  recently  driven  for  trying  to  give  to  a 
people  a  sense  of  national  self-respect;  in  India,  where 
an  Emperor  moves  a  national  capital  to  pacify  sub 
merged  discontent;  and  even  in  far  Cathay,  the  mystery 
land  of  Marco  Polo,  immobile,  phlegmatic,  individual 
istic  China,  men  have  been  waging  war  for  the  philosophy 
incorporated  in  the  first  ten  lines  of  our  Declaration  of 
Independence. 


12  FRANKLIN   K.  LANE 

Here  is  the  effect  of  a  tradition  that  is  real,  not  a 
mere  group  of  words  or  a  well-fashioned  bit  of  govern 
mental  machinery  —  real  because  it  is  ours;  it  has  come 
out  of  our  life;  for  the  only  real  traditions  a  people  have 
are  those  beliefs  that  have  become  a  part  of  them, 
like  the  good  manners  of  a  gentleman.  They  are  really 
our  sympathies  —  sympathies  born  of  experience.  Sub 
jectively  they  give  standpoint;  objectively  they  furnish 
background  —  a  rich,  deep  background  like  that  of  some 
master  of  light  and  shade,  some  Rembrandt,  whose  pic 
ture  is  one  great  glowing  mystery  of  darkness  save  in  a 
central  spot  of  radiant  light  where  stands  a  single  figure 
or  group  which  holds  the  eye  and  enchants  the  imagina 
tion.  History  may  give  to  us  the  one  bright  face  to 
look  upon,  but  in  the  deep  mystery  of  the  background 
the  real  story  is  told;  for  therein,  to  those  who  can  see, 
are  the  groping  multitudes  feeling  their  way  blindly 
toward  the  light  of  self-expression. 

Now,  this  is  a  western  view  of  tradition;  it  is  yours, 
too;  it  was  yours  first;  it  was  your  gift  to  us.  And  is 
it  impertinent  to  ask,  when  your  sensibilities  are  shocked 
at  some  departure  from  the  conventional  in  our  western 
law,  that  you  search  the  tradition  of  your  own  history 
to  know  in  what  spirit  and  by  what  method  the  gods  of 
the  elder  days  met  the  wrongs  they  wished  to  right? 
It  may  be  that  we  ask  too  many  questions;  that  we  are 
unwilling  to  accept  anything  as  settled;  that  we  are 
curious,  distrustful,  and  as  relentlessly  logical  as  a  child. 

For  what  are  we  but  creatures  of  the  night 

Led  forth  by  day, 

Who  needs  must  falter,  and  with  stammering  steps 
Spell  out  our  paths  in  syllables  of  pain  ? 

There  are  no  grown-ups  in  this  new  world  of  de 
mocracy.  We  are  trying  an  experiment  such  as  the 
world  has  never  seen.  Here  we  are,  so  many  million 


AMERICAN    TRADITION  13 

people  at  work  making  a  living  as  best  we  can; 
90,000,000  people  covering  half  a  continent  —  rich,  re 
spected,  feared.  Is  that  all  we  are?  Is  that  why  we 
are?  To  be  rich,  respected,  feared?  Or  have  we  some 
part  to  play  in  working  out  the  problems  of  this  world? 
Why  should  one  man  have  so  much  and  many  so  little? 
How  may  the  many  secure  a  larger  share  in  the  wealth 
which  they  create  without  destroying  individual  initiative 
or  blasting  individual  capacity  and  imagination?  It 
was  inevitable  that  these  questions  should  be  asked  when 
this  republic  was  established.  Man  has  been  struggling 
to  have  the  right  to  ask  these  questions  for  4,000  years; 
and  now  that  he  has  the  right  to  ask  any  questions  surely 
we  may  not  with  reason  expect  him  to  be  silent.  It  is 
no  answer  to  make  that  men  were  not  asking  these  ques 
tions  a  hundred  years  ago.  So  great  has  been  our  phy 
sical  endowment  that  until  the  most  recent  years  we 
have  been  indifferent  as  to  the  share  which  each  received 
of  the  wealth  produced.  We  could  then  accept  cheer 
fully  the  coldest  and  most  logical  of  economic  theories. 
But  now  men  are  wondering  as  to  the  future.  There 
may  be  much  of  envy  and  more  of  malice  in  current 
thought;  but  underneath  it  all  there  is  the  feeling  that 
if  a  nation  is  to  have  a  full  life  it  must  devise  methods 
by  which  its  citizens  shall  be  insured  against  monopoly 
of  opportunity.  This  is  the  meaning  of  many  policies 
the  full  philosophy  of  which  is  not  generally  grasped 
—  the  regulation  of  railroads  and  other  public  service 
corporations,  the  conservation  of  natural  resources,  the 
leasing  of  public  lands  and  waterpowers,  the  control 
of  great  combinations  of  wealth.  How  these  movements 
will  eventually  express  themselves  none  can  foretell,  but 
in  the  process  there  will  be  some  who  will  dogmatically 
contend  that  "Whatever  is,  is  right,"  and  others  who  will 
march  under  the  red  flag  of  revenge  and  exspoliation. 


14  FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 

And  in  that  day  we  must  look  for  men  to  meet  the  false 
cry  of  both  sides  —  "gentlemen  unafraid"  who  will 
neither  be  the  money-hired  butlers  of  the  rich  nor 
power-loving  panderers  to  the  poor. 

Assume  the  right  of  self-government  and  society  be 
comes  the  scene  of  an  heroic  struggle  for  the  realiza 
tion  of  justice.  Take  from  the  one  strong  man  the  right 
to  rule  and  make  others  serve,  the  right  to  take  all 
and  hold  all,  the  power  to  grant  or  to  withhold,  and 
you  have  set  all  men  to  asking,  "What  should  I  have, 
and  what  should  my  children  have?"  and  with  this  come 
all  the  perils  of  innovation  and  the  hazards  of  revolu 
tion. 

To  meet  such  a  situation  the  traditionalist  who  be 
lieves  that  the  last  word  in  politics  or  in  economics  was 
uttered  a  century  ago  is  as  far  from  the  truth  as  he 
who  holds  that  the  temporary  emotion  of  the  public  is 
the  stone-carved  word  from  Sinai. 

A  railroad  people  are  not  to  be  controlled  by  ox-team 
theories,  declaims  the  young  enthusiast  for  change.  An 
age  that  dares  to  tell  of  what  the  stars  are  made;  that 
weighs  the  very  suns  in  its  balances;  that  mocks  the 
birds  in  their  flight  through  the  air,  and  the  fish  in  their 
dart  through  the  sea;  that  transforms  the  falling  stream 
into  fire,  light,  and  music;  that  embalms  upon  a  piece 
of  plate  the  tenderest  tones  of  the  human  voice;  that 
treats  disease  with  disease;  that  supplies  a  new  ear 
with  the  same  facility  that  it  replaces  a  blown-out  tire; 
that  reaches  into  the  very  grave  itself  and  starts  again 
the  silent  heart  —  surely  such  an  age  may  be  allowed 
to  think  for  itself  somewhat  upon  questions  of  politics. 

Yet  with  our  searchings  and  our  probings,  who  knows 
more  of  the  human  heart  to-day  than  the  old  Psalmist? 
And  what  is  the  problem  of  government  but  one  of 
human  nature?  What  Burbank  has  as  yet  made  grapes 


AMERICAN    TRADITION  15 

to  grow  on  thorns  or  figs  on  thistles?  The  riddle 
of  the  universe  is  no  nearer  solution  than  it  was  when  the 
Sphinx  first  looked  upon  the  Nile.  The  one  constant 
and  inconstant  quantity  with  which  man  must  deal  is 
man.  Human  nature  responds  so  far  as  we  can  see 
to  the  same  magnetic  pull  and  push  that  moved  it  in 
the  days  of  Abraham  and  of  Socrates.  The  foundation 
of  government  is  man  —  changing,  inert,  impulsive, 
limited,  sympathetic,  selfish  man.  His  institutions, 
whether  social  or  political,  must  come  out  of  his  wants 
and  out  of  his  capacities.  The  problem  of  government, 
therefore,  is  not  always  what  should  be  done  but  what 
can  be  done.  We  may  not  follow  the  supreme  tradition 
of  the  race  to  create  a  newer,  sweeter  world  unless  we 
give  heed  to  its  complementary  tradition  that  man's  ex 
perience  cautions  him  to  make  a  new  trail  with  care. 
He  must  curb  courage  with  common-sense.  He  may  lay 
his  first  bricks  upon  the  twentieth  story,  but  not  until 
he  has  made  sure  of  the  solidity  of  the  frame  below. 
The  real  tradition  of  our  people  permits  the  mason  to 
place  brick  upon  brick  wherever  he  finds  it  most  con 
venient,  safest  and  most  economical;  but  he  must  not 
mistake  thin  air  for  structural  steel. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  thought  that  I  would  leave 
with  you  by  the  description  of  one  of  our  western  rail 
roads.  Your  train  sweeps  across  the  desert  like  some  bold 
knight  in  a  joust,  and  when  about  to  drive  recklessly  into 
a  sheer  cliff  it  turns  a  graceful  curve  and  follows  up  the 
wild  meanderings  of  a  stream  until  it  reaches  a  ridge 
along  which  it  finds  its  flinty  way  for  many  miles.  At 
length  you  come  face  to  face  with  a  great  gulf,  a 
canyon  —  yawning,  resounding  and  purple  in  its  depths. 
Before  you  lies  a  path,  zigzagging  down  the  canyon's 
side  to  the  very  bottom,  and  away  beyond  another 
slighter  trail  climbs  up  upon  the  opposite  side.  Which 


16  FRANKLIN   K.  LANE 

is  our  way?  Shall  we  follow  the  old  trail?  The  answer 
comes  as  the  train  shoots  out  across  a  bridge  and  into  a 
tunnel  on  the  opposite  side,  coming  out  again  upon  the 
highlands  and  looking  into  the  Valley  of  Heart's  Desire 
where  the  wistful  Rasselas  might  have  lived. 

When  you  or  I  look  upon  that  stretch  of  steel  we 
wonder  at  the  daring  of  its  builders.  Great  men  they 
were  who  boldly  built  that  road  —  great  in  imagination, 
greater  in  their  deeds  —  for  they  were  men  so  great 
that  they  did  not  build  upon  a  line  that  was  without 
tradition.  The  route  they  followed  was  made  by  the 
buffalo  and  the  elk  ten  thousand  years  ago.  The  bear 
and  the  deer  followed  it  generation  after  generation, 
and  after  them  came  the  trapper,  and  then  the  pioneer. 
It  was  already  a  trail  when  the  railroad  engineer  came 
with  transit  and  chain  seeking  a  path  for  the  great  black 
stallion  of  steel. 

Up  beside  the  stream  and  along  the  ridge  the  track 
was  laid.  But  there  was  no  thought  of  following  the 
old  trail  downward  into  the  canyon.  Then  the  spirit 
of  the  new  age  broke  through  tradition,  the  canyon  was 
leaped  and  the  mountain's  heart  pierced,  that  man  might 
have  a  swifter  and  safer  way  to  the  Valley  of  Heart's 
Desire. 


AMERICA'S  HERITAGE 
FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 

You  have  been  in  conference  for  the  past  three  days, 
and  I  have  greatly  regretted  that  I  could  not  be  with 
you.  You  have  been  gathered  together  as  crusaders 
in  a  great  cause.  You  are  the  missionaries  in  a  new 
movement.  You  represent  millions  of  people  in  the 
United  States  who  to-night  believe  that  there  is  no  other 
question  of  such  importance  before  the  American  people 
as  the  solidifying  and  strengthening  of  true  American 
sentiment. 

I  understand  that  your  conference  has  been  a  success; 
and  it  has  been  a  success  because,  unlike  some  other  con 
ferences,  it  was  made  up  of  experts  who  knew  what  they 
were  talking  about.  But  you  know  no  one  can  give 
the  final  answer  upon  the  question  of  Americanization. 
You  may  study  methods,  but  you  find  yourselves  foiled 
because  there  is  no  one  method  —  no  standardized 
method  that  can  always  be  used  to  deal  correctly  and 
truly  with  any  human  problem.  Bergson,  the  French 
philosopher,  was  here  a  year  or  two  ago,  and  he  made 
a  suggestion  to  me  that  seemed  very  profound  when 
he  said  that  the  theory  of  evolution  could  carry  on  as 
to  species  until  it  came  to  deal  with  man,  and  then  you 
had  to  deal  with  each  individual  man  upon  the  theory 
that  he  was  a  species  by  himself.  And  I  think  there  is 

1  Address  at  the  Americanization  Banquet,  Washington,  D.  C., 
May  14,  1919.  Reprinted  by  permission  from  Proceedings  of 
the  Americanization  Conference,  Government  Fruiting  Office,  1919, 

17 


i8  FRANKLIN   K.  LANE 

more  than  superficial  significance  to  that.  It  may  go 
to  the  very  heart  and  center  of  what  we  call  spirituality. 
It  may  be  because  of  that  very  fact  the  individual  is  a 
soul  by  himself;  and  it  is  for  that  reason  that  there  must 
be  avenues  opened  into  men's  hearts  that  can  not  be 
standardized. 

Man  is  a  great  moated,  walled  castle,  with  doors  by 
the  dozens,  doors  by  the  score,  leading  into  him  —  but 
most  of  us  keep  our  doors  closed.  It  is  difficult  for 
people  to  gain  access  to  us;  but  there  are  some  doors 
that  are  open  to  the  generality  of  mankind;  and  as 
those  who  are  seeking  to  know  our  fellow  man  and  to 
reach  him,  it  is  our  place  to  find  what  those  doors  are 
and  how  those  doors  can  be  opened. 

One  of  those  doors  might  be  labeled  "our  love  for  our 
children."  That  is  a  door  common  to  all.  Another 
door  might  be  labeled  "our  love  for  a  piece  of  land." 
Another  door  might  be  labeled  "our  common  hatred  of 
injustice."  Another  door  might  be  labeled  "the  need 
for  human  sympathy."  Another  door  might  be  labeled 
"fear  of  suffering."  And  another  door  might  be  labeled 
"the  hope  that  we  all  have  in  our  hearts  that  this  world 
will  turn  into  a  better  one." 

Through  some  one  of  those  doors  every  man  can  be 
reached;  at  least,  if  not  every  man,  certainly  the  great 
mass  of  mankind.  They  are  not  to  be  reached  through 
interest  alone;  they  are  not  to  be  reached  through  mind; 
they  are  reached  through  instincts  and  impulses  and 
through  tendencies;  and  there  is  some  word,  some  act 
that  you  or  I  can  do  or  say  that  will  get  inside  of  that 
strange,  strange  man  and  reveal  him  to  himself  and 
reveal  him  to  us  and  make  him  of  use  to  the  world. 

We  want  to  reach,  through  one  of  those  doors,  every 
man  in  the  United  States  who  does  not  sympathize  with 
us  in  a  supreme  allegiance  to  our  country.  You  would 


AMERICA'S    HERITAGE  19 

be  amused  to  see  some  of  the  letters  that  come  to  me, 
asking  almost  peremptorily  what  methods  should  be 
adopted  by  which  men  and  women  can  be  Americanized, 
as  if  there  were  some  one  particular  prescription  that 
could  be  given;  as  if  you  could  roll  up  the  sleeve  of  a 
man  and  give  him  a  hypodermic  of  some  solution  that 
would,  by  some  strange  alchemy,  transform  him  into  a 
good  American  citizen;  as  if  you  could  take  him  water, 
and  in  it  make  a  mixture  —  one  part  the  ability  to  read 
and  write  and  speak  the  English  language;  then  another 
part,  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  one  part,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States;  one  part,  a  love  for 
apple  pie;  one  part,  a  desire  and  a  willingness  to  wear 
American  shoes;  and  another  part,  a  pride  in  using 
American  plumbing;  and  take  all  those  together  and 
grind  them  up,  and  have  a  solution  which  you  could 
put  into  a  man's  veins  and  by  those  superficialities,  trans 
form  him  into  a  man  who  loves  America.  No  such  thing 
can  be  done.  We  know  it  can  not  be  done,  because  we 
know  those  who  read  and  write  and  speak  the  language 
and  they  do  not  have  that  feeling.  We  know  that  we  re 
gard  one  who  takes  his  glass  of  milk  and  his  apple  pie  for 
lunch  as  presumably  a  good  American.  We  know  that 
there  is  virtue  in  the  American  bath.  We  know  that 
there  are  principles  enunciated  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  which  are  necessary  to  get  into  one's  system  before 
he  can  thoroughly  understand  the  United  States;  and 
there  are  some  who  have  those  principles  as  a  standard 
for  their  lives,  who  yet  have  never  heard  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  or  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  You  can  not  make  Americans  that  way. 
You  have  got  to  make  them  by  calling  upon  the  fine 
things  that  are  within  them,  and  by  dealing  with  them 
in  sympathy;  by  appreciating  what  they  have  to  offer 


20  FRANKLIN   K.  LANE 

us,  and  by  revealing  to  them  what  we  have  to  offer  them. 
And  that  brings  to  mind  the  thought  that  this  work  must 
be  a  human  work  —  must  be  something  done  out  of 
the  human  heart  and  speaking  to  the  human  heart,  and 
must  largely  turn  upon  instrumentalities  that  are  in  no 
way  formal,  and  that  have  no  dogma  and  have  no 
creed,  and  which  can  not  be  put  into  writing,  and  can  not 
be  set  upon  the  press  —  to  a  thought  that  I  have  had 
in  my  mind  for  some  time  as  to  the  advancing  of  a  new 
organization  in  this  country  —  and,  perhaps,  you  will 
sympathize  with  it  —  I  have  called  it,  for  lack  of  a 
better  name,  "The  League  of  American  Fellowship,"  and 
there  should  be  no  condition  for  membership,  excepting 
a  pledge  that  each  one  gives  that  each  year,  or  for  one 
year,  the  member  will  undertake  to  interpret  America 
sympathetically  to  at  least  one  foreign-born  person,  or 
one  person  in  the  United  States  who  does  not  have  an 
understanding  of  American  institutions,  American  tradi 
tions,  American  history,  American  sports,  American  life, 
and  the  spirit  that  is  American.  If  you,  upon  your 
return  to  your  homes,  could  organize  in  the  cities  that 
you  represent,  throughout  the  breadth  of  this  land,  some 
such  league  as  that,  and  by  individual  effort,  and  with 
out  formalism,  pledge  the  body  of  those  with  whom  you 
come  in  contact  to  make  Americans  by  sympathy  and  by 
understanding,  I  believe  we  would  make  great  progress 
in  the  solution  of  this  problem. 

I  do  not  know  what  method  can  be  adopted  for  the 
making  of  Americans,  but  I  think  there  can  be  a  standard 
test  as  to  the  result.  We  can  tell  when  a  man  is  Ameri 
can  in  his  spirit.  There  has  been  a  test  through  which 
the  men  of  this  country  —  and  the  women,  too  —  have 
recently  passed  —  supposed  to  be  the  greatest  of  all 
tests  —  the  test  of  war.  When  men  go  forth  and  sacri 
fice  their  lives,  then  we  say  they  believe  in  something  as 


AMERICA'S    HERITAGE  21 

beyond  anything  else;  and  so  our  men  in  this  country, 
boys  of  foreign  birth,  boys  of  foreign  parentage,  Greek 
and  Dane  and  Italian  and  Russian  and  Polander  and 
Frenchman  and  Portuguese,  Irish,  Scotch  —  all  these 
boys  have  gone  to  France,  fought  their  fight,  given  up 
their  lives,  and  they  have  proved,  all  Americans  that  they 
are,  that  there  is  a  power  in  America  by  which  this 
strange  conglomeration  of  peoples  can  be  melted  into 
one,  and  by  which  a  common  attachment  can  be  made 
and  a  common  sympathy  developed.  I  do  not  know  how 
it  is  done,  but  it  is  done. 

I  remember  once,  thirty  years  or  more  ago,  passing 
through  North  Dakota  on  a  Northern  Pacific  train.  I 
stepped  off  the  platform,  and  the  thermometer  was  thirty 
or  forty  degrees  below  zero.  There  was  no  one  to  be 
seen,  excepting  one  man,  and  that  man,  as  he  stood  before 
me,  had  five  different  coats  on  him  to  keep  him  warm; 
and  I  looked  out  over  that  sea  of  snow,  and  then  I  said, 
"Well,  this  is  a  pretty  rough  country,  isn't  it?"  He 
was  a  Dane,  I  think,  and  he  looked  me  hard  in  the  eye 
and  he  said,  "Young  fellow,  I  want  you  to  understand 
that  this  is  God's  own  country." 

Every  one  of  those  boys  who  returned  from  France 
came  back  feeling  that  this  is  God's  own  country.  He 
knows  little  of  America  as  a  whole,  perhaps;  he  can  not 
recite  any  provisions  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States;  it  may  be  that  he  has  learned  his  English  while 
in  the  Army;  but  some  part  of  this  country  is  "God's 
own  country"  to  him.  And  it  is  a  good  thing  that  we 
should  not  lose  the  local  attachments  that  we  have  — 
those  narrownesses,  those  prejudices  that  give  point  to 
character.  There  is  a  kind  of  breadth  that  is  shallow- 
ness;  there  is  a  kind  of  sympathy  that  has  no  punch. 
We  must  remember  that  if  that  world  across  the  water 
is  to  be  made  what  it  can  be  under  democratic  forms, 


22  FRANKLIN    K.    LANE 

it  is  to  be  led  by  Democracy;  and,  therefore,  the  supreme 
responsibility  falls  upon  us  to  make  this  all  that  a  De 
mocracy  can  be.  And  if  there  is  a  bit  of  local  pride  at 
taching  to  one  part  of  our  soil,  that  gives  emphasis  to 
our  intense  attachment  to  this  country,  let  it  be.  I  w3uld 
not  remove  it.  I  come  from  a  part  of  this  country  that 
is  supposed  to  be  more  prejudiced  in  favor  of  itself  than 
any  other  section.  I  remember  years  ago  hearing  that 
the  Commissioner  of  Fisheries  wished  to  propagate  and 
spread  in  these  Atlantic  waters  the  western  crab  —  which 
is  about  four  times  the  size  of  the  Atlantic  crab  —  and 
so  they  sent  two  carloads  of  those  crabs  to  the  Atlantic 
coast.  They  were  dumped  into  the  Atlantic  at  Woods 
Hole,  and  on  each  crab  was  a  little  aluminum  tablet 
saying  "When  found  notify  Fish  Commission,  Wash 
ington."  A  year  passed  and  no  crab  was  found;  two 
years  passed  and  no  crab  was  found.  And  the  third 
year  two  of  those  crabs  were  found  by  a  Buenos  Aires 
fisherman,  who  reported  that  they  evidently  were  going 
south,  bound  around  the  Cape,  returning  to  California. 
A  week  or  two  ago  I  was  addressing  a  Methodist 
conference  in  Baltimore,  and  I  told  this  story  to  a  dear 
old  gray-headed  man,  seated  opposite  me,  who  was 
eighty-six  years  of  age,  who  said  he  had  been  preaching 
there  for  sixty  years;  and  I  said  to  him,  "Do  you  come 
from  Maryland?"  He  said,  "Yes,  sir."  He  said,  "I 
come  from  the  Eastern  Shore.  Have  you  ever  been 
there?"  I  said,  "No;  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  never  been 
on  the  Eastern  Shore."  He  said,  "Never  been  there? 
Well,  I  am  sorry  for  you."  He  said,  "You  know,  we  are 
a  strange  people  down  there  —  a  strange  people."  He 
said,  "We  have  some  peculiar  legends;  some  stories  that 
have  come  down  to  us,  generation  after  generation;  and 
while  other  people  may  not  believe  them,  we  do;  and 
one  of  the  stories  is  that  when  Adam  and  Eve  were  in 


AMERICA'S    HERITAGE  23 

the  Garden  of  Eden,  they  fell  sick,  and  the  Lord  was 
greatly  concerned  about  them,  and  he  called  a  meeting 
of  his  principal  angels  and  consulted  with  them  as  to 
what  to  do  for  them  by  way  of  giving  them  a  change  of 
air  and  improving  their  health;  and  the  Angel  Gabriel 
said,  'Why  not  take  them  down  to  the  Eastern  Shore?' 
And  the  Lord  said,  'Oh,  no;  that  would  not  be  sufficient 
change.' " 

And  so,  as  you  go  throughout  the  United  States,  you 
find  men  attached  to  different  parts  of  our  continent, 
making  their  homes  in  different  places,  and  not  thinking 
often  about  the  great  country  to  which  they  belong, 
excepting  as  it  is  represented  by  that  flag;  and  every 
one  of  those  local  attachments  is  a  valuable  asset  to 
our  country,  and  nothing  should  be  done  to  minimize 
them.  When  the  boys  come  back  from  France,  every 
one  of  them  says,  "The  thing  I  most  desired  while  I 
was  in  France  was  to  get  home,  for  there  I  first  realized 
how  splendid  and  beautiful  and  generous  and  rich  a 
country  America  was."  We  want  to  make  these  men 
who  come  to  us  from  abroad  realize  what  those  boys 
realized,  and  we  want  to  put  inside  of  their  spirits  an 
appreciation  of  those  things  that  are  noble  and  fine  in 
American  law  and  American  institutions  and  American 
life;  and  we  want  them  to  join  with  us  as  citizens  in 
giving  to  America  every  good  thing  that  comes  out  of 
every  foreign  country. 

We  are  a  blend  in  sympathies  and  a  blend  in  art,  a 
blend  in  literature,  a  blend  in  tendencies,  and  that  is 
our  hope  for  making  this  the  supremely  great  race  of 
the  world.  It  is  not  to  be  done  mechanically;  it  is 
not  to  be  done  scientifically;  it  is  to  be  done  by  the 
human  touch;  by  reaching  some  door  into  that  strange 
man,  with  some  word  or  some  act  that  will  show  to  him 
that  there  is  in  America  the  kind  of  sentiment  and 
sympathy  that  that  man's  soul  is  reaching  out  for. 


24  FRANKLIN    K.    LANE 

This  is  God's  own  country.  We  want  the  boys  to 
know  that  the  sky  is  blue  and  big  and  broad  with  hope, 
and  that  its  fields  are  green  with  promise,  and  that  in 
every  one  of  our  hearts  there  is  the  desire  that  the  land 
shall  be  better  than  it  is  —  while  we  have  no  apologies 
to  make  for  what  it  is.  This  is  no  land  in  which  to 
spread  any  doctrine  of  revolution,  because  we  have 
abolished  revolution.  When  we  came  here  we  gave  over 
the  right  of  revolution.  You  can  not  have  revolution  in 
a  land  unless  you  have  somebody  to  revolt  against  —  and 
whom  would  you  revolt  against  in  the  United  States? 
And  when  we  won  our  revolution  140  years  ago,  we  then 
said,  "We  give  over  that  inherent  right  of  revolution 
because  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  revolution  against 
a  country  in  which  the  people  govern." 

We  have  no  particular  social  theory  to  advocate  in 
Americanization;  no  economic  system  to  advocate;  but 
we  can  fairly  and  squarely  demand  of  every  man  in  the 
United  States,  if  he  is  a  citizen,  that  he  shall  give 
supreme  allegiance  to  the  flag  of  the  United  States,  and 
swear  by  it  —  and  he  is  not  worthy  to  be  its  citizen 
unless  it  holds  first  place  in  his  heart. 

The  best  test  of  whether  we  are  Americans  or  not  will 
not  come,  nor  has  it  come,  with  war.  It  will  come  when 
we  go  hand  in  hand  together,  recognizing  that  there  are 
defects  in  our  land,  that  there  are  things  lacking  in  our 
system;  that  our  programs  are  not  perfect;  that  our 
institutions  can  be  bettered;  and  we  look  forward  con 
stantly  by  cooperation  to  making  this  a  land  in  which 
there  will  be  a  minimum  of  fear  and  a  maximum  of  hope. 


ADDRESS   AT   THE   COLLEGE   OF   THE 
HOLY   CROSS1 

CALVIN  COOLIDGE 

To  come  from  the  press  of  public  affairs,  where  the 
practical  side  of  life  is  at  its  flood,  into  these  calm  and 
classic  surroundings,  where  ideals  are  cherished  for 
their  own  sake,  is  an  intense  relief  and  satisfaction. 
Even  in  the  full  flow  of  Commencement  exercises  it  is 
apparent  that  here  abide  the  truth  and  the  servants  of 
the  truth.  Here  appears  the  fulfillment  of  the  past  in 
the  grand  company  of  alumni,  recalling  a  history  already 
so  thick  with  laurels.  Here  is  the  hope  of  the  future, 
brighter  yet  in  the  young  men  to-day  sent  forth. 

The  unarmed  youth  of  heaven.    But  o'er  their  heads 

Celestial  armory,  shield,  helm  and  spear, 

Hung  bright,  with  diamond  flaming  and  with  gold.  2 

In  them  the  dead  past  lives.  They  represent  the  col 
lege.  They  are  the  college.  It  is  not  in  the  campus 
with  its  imposing  halls  and  temples,  nor  in  the  silent 
lore  of  the  vast  library  or  the  scientific  instruments  of 
well-equipped  laboratories,  but  in  the  men  who  are  the 
incarnation  of  all  these,  that  your  college  lives.  It  is 
not  enough  that  there  be  knowledge,  history  and  poetry, 

1  From  Have  Faith  in  Massachusetts,  by  Calvin  Coolidge.    The 
selection  is  used  by  permission  of,  and  by  special  arrangement 
with,  the  Houghton  Mlfflin  Co.,  the  authorized  publishers.    Copy 
right,  1919,  by  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.    The  address  was  delivered 
June  25,  1919. 

2  Paradise  Lost,  IV,  1.  552. 

25 


26  CALVIN   COOLIDGE 

eloquence  and  art,  science  and  mathematics,  philosophy 
and  ethics,  ideas  and  ideals.  They  must  be  vitalized. 
They  must  be  fashioned  into  life.  To  send  forth  men 
who  live  all  these  is  to  be  a  college.  This  temple  of 
learning  must  be  translated  into  human  form  if  it  is  to 
exercise  any  influence  over  the  affairs  of  mankind,  or  if 
its  alumni  are  to  wield  the  power  of  education. 

A  great  thinker  and  master  of  the  expression  of 
thought  has  told  us: — 

It  was  before  Deity,  embodied  in  a  human  form,  walking  among 
men,  partaking  of  their  infirmities,  leaning  on  their  bosoms, 
weeping  over  their  graves,  slumbering  in  the  manger,  bleeding 
on  the  cross,  that  the  prejudices  of  the  Synagogue,  and  the  doubts 
of  the  Academy,  and  the  pride  of  the  Portico,  and  the  fasces  of 
the  Lictor,  and  the  swords  of  thirty  Legions,  were  humbled  in 
the  dust,  i 

If  college-bred  men  are  to  exercise  the  influence  over 
the  progress  of  the  world  which  ought  to  be  their  por 
tion,  they  must  exhibit  in  their  lives  a  knowledge  and  a 
learning  which  is  marked  with  candor,  humility,  and  the 
honest  mind. 

The  present  is  ever  influenced  mightily  by  the  past. 
Patrick  Henry  spoke  with  great  wisdom  when  he  de 
clared  to  the  Continental  Congress,  "I  have  but  one 
lamp  by  which  my  feet  are  guided  and  that  is  the  lamp 
of  experience."  Mankind  is  finite.  It  has  the  limits  of 
all  things  finite.  The  processes  of  government  are  sub 
ject  to  the  same  limitations,  and,  lacking  imperfections, 
would  be  something  more  than  human.  It  is  always 
easy  to  discover  flaws,  and,  pointing  them  out,  to  criti 
cize.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  suggest  substantial  remedies 
or  propose  constructive  policies.  It  is  characteristic  of 
the  unlearned  that  they  are  forever  proposing  something 
which  is  old,  and,  because  it  has  recently  come  to  their 

1  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Milton. 


ADDRESS  AT   HOLY   CROSS  27 

own  attention,  supposing  it  to  be  new.  Into  this  error 
men  of  liberal  education  ought  not  to  fall.  The  forms 
and  processes  of  government  are  not  new.  They  have 
been  known,  discussed,  and  tried  in  all  their  varieties 
through  the  past  ages.  That  which  America  exemplifies 
in  her  Constitution  and  system  of  representative  gov 
ernment  is  the  most  modern,  and  of  any  yet  devised 
gives  promise  of  being  the  most  substantial  and  enduring. 
It  is  not  unusual  to  hear  arguments  against  our  insti 
tutions  and  our  government,  addressed  particularly  to 
recent  arrivals  and  the  sons  of  recent  arrivals  to  our 
shores.  They  sometimes  take  the  form  of  a  claim  that 
our  institutions  were  founded  long  ago;  that  changed 
conditions  require  that  they  now  be  changed.  Espe 
cially  is  it  claimed  by  those  seeking  such  changes  that 
these  new  arrivals  and  men  of  their  race  and  ideas  had 
no  hand  in  the  making  of  our  country,  and  that  it  was 
formed  by  those  who  were  hostile  to  them  and  there 
fore  they  owe  it  no  support.  Whatever  may  be  the 
condition  in  relation  to  others,  and  whatever  ignorance 
and  bigotry  may  imagine  such  arguments  do  not  apply 
to  those  of  the  race  and  blood  so  prominent  in  this 
assemblage.  To  establish  this  it  were  but  necessary  to 
cite  eleven  of  the  fifty-five  signers  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  recall  that  on  the  roll  of  Washing 
ton's  generals  were  Sullivan,  Knox,  Wayne,  and  the 
gallant  son  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  who  fell  at 
Quebec  at  the  head  of  his  troops  —  Richard  Mont 
gomery.  But  scholarship  has  answered  ignorance.  The 
learned  and  patriotic  research  of  men  of  the  education 
of  Dr.  James  J.  Walsh  and  Michael  J.  O'Brien,  the 
historian  of  the  Irish  American  Society,  has  demon 
strated  that  a  generous  portion  of  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  men  who  fought  in  the  Revolution  and  supported 
those  who  framed  our  institutions  was  not  alien  to  those 


28  CALVIN    COOLIDGE 

who  are  represented  here.  It  is  no  wonder  that  from 
among  such  that  which  is  American  has  drawn  some  of 
its  most  steadfast  defenders. 

In  these  days  of  violent  agitation  scholarly  men  should 
reflect  that  the  progress  of  the  past  has  been  accom 
plished  not  by  the  total  overthrow  of  institutions  so  much 
as  by  discarding  that  which  was  bad  and  preserving  that 
which  was  good;  not  by  revolution  but  by  evolution  has 
man  worked  out  his  destiny.  We  shall  miss  the  central 
feature  of  all  progress  unless  we  hold  to  that  process  now. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  our  institutions  are  per 
fect.  The  most  beneficent  of  our  institutions  had  their 
beginnings  in  forms  which  would  be  particularly  odious 
to  us  now.  Civilization  began  with  war  and  slavery; 
government  began  in  absolute  despotism;  and  religion 
itself  grew  out  of  superstition  which  was  oftentimes 
marked  with  human  sacrifices.  So  out  of  our  present 
imperfections  we  shall  develop  that  which  is  more  per 
fect.  But  the  candid  mind  of  the  scholar  will  admit  and 
seek  to  remedy  all  wrongs  with  the  same  zeal  with  which 
it  defends  all  rights. 

From  the  knowledge  and  the  learning  of  the  scholar 
there  ought  to  be  developed  an  abiding  faith.  What  is 
the  teaching  of  all  history?  That  which  is  necessary  for 
the  welfare  and  progress  of  the  human  race  has  never 
been  destroyed.  The  discoverers  of  truth,  the  teachers 
of  science,  the  makers  of  inventions,  have  passed  to 
their  last  rewards,  but  their  works  have  survived.  The 
Phoenician  galleys  and  the  civilization  which  was  born 
of  their  commerce  have  perished,  but  the  alphabet  which 
that  people  perfected  remains.  The  shepherd  kings  of 
Israel,  the  temple  and  empire  of  Solomon,  have  gone 
the  way  of  all  the  earth,  but  the  Old  Testament  has 
been  preserved  for  the  inspiration  of  mankind.  The 
ark  of  the  covenant  and  the  seven-pronged  candlestick 


ADDRESS    AT    HOLY    CROSS  29 

have  passed  from  human  view;  the  inhabitants  of  Judea 
have  been  dispersed  to  the.  ends  of  the  earth,  but  the 
New  Testament  has  survived  and  increased  in  its  influ 
ence  among  men.  The  glory  of  Athens  and  Sparta, 
the  grandeur  of  the  Imperial  City,  are  a  long-lost 
memory,  but  the  poetry  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  the  oratory 
of  Demosthenes  and  Cicero,  the  philosophy  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  abide  with  us  forevermore.  Whatever  America 
holds  that  may  be  of  value  to  posterity  will  not  pass 
away. 

The  long  and  toilsome  processes  which  have  marked 
the  progress  of  the  past  cannot  be  shunned  by  the 
present  generation  to  our  advantage.  We  have  no  right 
to  expect  as  our  portion  something  substantially  different 
from  human  experience  in  the  past.  The  constitution 
of  the  universe  does  not  change.  Human  nature  re 
mains  constant.  That  service  and  sacrifice  which  have 
been  the  price  of  past  progress  are  the  price  of  progress 
now. 

This  is  not  a  gospel  of  despair,  but  of  hope  and  high 
expectation.  Out  of  many  tribulations  mankind  has 
pressed  steadily  onward.  The  opportunity  for  a  rational 
existence  was  never  before  so  great.  Blessings  were 
never  so  bountiful.  But  the  evidence  was  never  so 
overwhelming  as  now  that  men  and  nations  must  live 
rationally  or  perish. 

The  defences  of  our  Commonwealth  are  not  material 
but  mental  and  spiritual.  Her  fortifications,  her  castles, 
are  her  institutions  of  learning.  Those  who  are  admitted 
to  the  college  campus  tread  the  ramparts  of  the  State. 
The  classic  halls  are  the  armories  from  which  are 
furnished  forth  the  knights  in  armor  to  defend  and 
support  our  liberty.  For  such  high  purpose  has  Holy 
Cross  been  called  into  being.  A  firm  foundation  of 
the  Commonwealth.  A  defender  of  righteousness.  A 


30  CALVIN   COOLIDGE 

teacher  of  holy  men.    Let  her  turrets  continue  to  rise 
showing  forth  "the  way,  the  truth  and  the  light"  — 

In  thoughts  sublime  that  pierce  the  night  like  stars, 
And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man's  search 
To  vaster  issues.1 

1  George  Eliot's  "0  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible." 


OUR  FUTURE  IMMIGRATION  POLICY1 
FREDERIC  C.  HOWE 

The  outstanding  feature  of  our  immigration  policy 
has  been  its  negative  character.  The  immigrant  is  ex 
pected  to  look  out  for  himself.  Up  to  the  present  time 
legislation  has  been  guided  by  conditions  which  pre 
vailed  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  We 
have  permitted  the  immigrant  to  come;  only  recently 
has  he  been  examined  for  physical,  mental,  and  moral 
defects  at  the  port  of  debarkation,  and  then  he  has 
been  permitted  to  land  and  go  where  he  willed.  This 
was  the  practice  in  colonial  days.  It  has  been  con 
tinued  without  essential  change  down  to  the  present 
time.  It  was  a  policy  which  worked  reasonably  well  in 
earlier  times,  when  the  immigrant  passed  from  the  ship 
to  land  to  be  had  from  the  Indians,  or  in  later  genera 
tions  from  the  government. 

And  from  generation  to  generation  the  immigrant 
moved  westward,  just  beyond  the  line  of  settlement, 
where  he  found  a  homestead  awaiting  his  labor.  These 
were  the  years  of  Anglo-Saxon,  of  German,  of  Scandi 
navian,  of  north  European  settlement,  when  the  immi 
gration  to  this  country  was  almost  exclusively  from  the 
same  stock.  And  so  long  as  land  was  to  be  had  for  the 
asking  there  was  no  immigration  problem.  The  in 
dividual  States  were  eager  for  settlers  to  develop  their 

1From  Scribner's  Magazine,  May,  1917.  Copyright,  1917,  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  By  permission  of  the  author  and  of  the 
publishers. 


32  FREDERIC    C.    HOWE 

resources.  There  were  few  large  cities.  Industry  was 
just  beginning.  There  was  relatively  little  poverty,  while 
the  tenements  and  slums  of  our  cities  and  mining  dis 
tricts  had  not  yet  appeared.  This  was  the  period  of  the 
"old  immigration,"  as  it  is  called;  the  immigration  from 
the  north  of  Europe,  from  the  same  stock  that  had  made 
the  original  settlements  in  New  England,  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  the  South;  it  was  the  same 
stock  that  settled  Ohio  and  the  Middle  West,  Kansas, 
Nebraska,  and  the  Dakotas. 

The  "old  immigration"  from  northern  Europe  ceased 
to  be  predominant  in  the  closing  years  of  the  last  cen 
tury.  Then  the  tide  shifted  to  southern  Europe,  to 
Italy,  Austria-Hungary,  Russia,  Poland,  and  the  Balkans. 
A  new  strain  was  being  added  to  our  Anglo-Saxon,  Ger 
manic  stock.  The  "new  immigration"  did  not  speak  our 
language.  It  was  unfamiliar  with  self-government.  It 
was  largely  illiterate.  And  with  this  shift  from  the  "old 
immigration"  to  the  "new,"  immigration  increased  in 
volume.  In  1892  the  total  immigration  was  579,663; 
in  1894  it  fell  to  285,631.  As  late  as  1900  it  was  but 
448,572.  Then  it  began  to  rise.  In  1903  it  was 
857,046;  in  1905  it  reached  the  million  mark;  and  from 
that  time  down  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the  total 
immigration  averaged  close  on  to  a  million  a  year,  the 
total  arrivals  in  1914  being  1,218,480.  Almost  all  of 
the  increase  came  from  southern  Europe,  over  70  per 
cent  of  the  total  being  from  the  Latin  and  Slavic  coun 
tries.  In  1914  Austria  contributed  134,831  people; 
Hungary  143,321;  Italy  283,734;  Russia  255,660;  while 
the  United  Kingdom  contributed  73,417;  Germany  35,- 
734;  Norway  8,329;  and  Sweden  14,800. 

For  twenty  years  the  predominant  immigration  has 
been  from  south  and  central  Europe.  And  it  is  this 
"new  immigration,"  so  called,  that  has  created  the  "im- 


OUR    FUTURE   IMMIGRATION    POLICY    33 

migration  problem."  It  is  largely  responsible  for  the 
agitation  for  restrictive  legislation  on  the  part  of  persons 
fearful  of  the  admixture  of  races,  of  the  difficulties  of 
assimilation,  of  the  high  illiteracy  of  the  southern  group ; 
and  most  of  all  for  the  opposition  on  the  part  of  or 
ganized  labor  to  the  competition  of  the  unskilled  army 
of  men  who  settle  in  the  cities,  who  go  to  the  mines, 
and  who  struggle  for  the  existing  jobs  in  competition  with 
those  already  here.  For  the  newcomer  has  to  find  work 
quickly.  He  has  exhausted  what  little  resources  he 
had  in  transportation.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases  his 
transportation  has  been  advanced  by  friends  and  rela 
tives  already  here,  who  have  lured  him  to  this  country 
by  descriptions  of  better  economic  conditions,  greater 
opportunities  for  himself,  and  especially  the  new  life 
which  opens  up  to  his  children.  And  this  overseas  com 
petition  is  a  serious  problem  to  American  labor,  especially 
in  the  iron  and  steel  industries,  in  the  mining  districts, 
in  railroad  and  other  construction  work,  into  which  em 
ployments  the  foreigners  largely  go. 

How  seriously  the  workers  and  our  cities  are  burdened 
with  this  new  immigration  from  south  and  central  Europe 
is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  56  per  cent  of  the  foreign- 
born  population  in  this  country  is  in  the  States  to  the 
east  of  the  Mississippi  and  north  of  the  Ohio  Rivers,  to 
which  at  least  80  per  cent  of  the  present  incoming  immi 
grants  are  destined.  In  the  larger  cities  between  70 
and  80  per  cent  of  the  population  is  either  foreign  born 
or  immediately  descended  from  persons  of  foreign  birth. 
In  New  York  City  78.6  per  cent  of  the  people  are  of 
foreign  birth  or  immediate  foreign  extraction.  In  Boston 
the  percentage  is  74.2,  in  Cleveland  75.8,  and  in  Chicago 
77.5.  In  the  mining  districts  the  percentage  is  even 
higher.  In  other  words,  almost  all  of  the  immigration 
of  the  last  twenty  years  has  gone  to  the  cities,  to  industry, 


34  FREDERIC    C.    HOWE 

to  mining.  Here  the  immigrant  competes  with  organized 
labor.  He  burdens  our  inadequate  housing  accommoda 
tions.  He  congests  the  tenements.  He  is  at  least  a  prob 
lem  for  democracy. 

But  the  effect  of  immigration  on  our  life  is  not  as 
simple  as  the  advocates  of  restriction  insist.  It  is 
probable  that  the  struggle  of  the  working  classes  to 
improve  their  conditions  is  rendered  more  difficult  by 
the  incoming  tide  of  unskilled  labor.  It  is  probable 
too  that  wages  are  kept  down  in  certain  occupations  and 
that  employers  are  desirous  of  keeping  open  the  gate 
as  a  means  of  securing  cheap  labor  and  labor  that  is 
difficult  to  organize.  It  is  also  probably  true  that  the 
immigrant  is  a  temporary  burden  to  democracy  and 
especially  to  our  cities.  But  the  subject  is  not  nearly 
as  simple  as  this.  The  immigrant  is  a  consumer  as 
well  as  a  producer.  He  creates  a  market  for  the  prod 
ucts  of  labor  even  while  he  competes  with  labor.  And 
he  creates  new  trades  and  new  industries,  like  the 
clothing  trades  of  New  York,  Chicago,  and  Cleveland, 
which  employ  hundreds  of  thousands  of  workers.  And 
a  large  part  of  the  immigrants  assimilate  rapidly. 

In  addition,  the  new  stock  from  southern  and  central 
Europe  brings  to  this  country  qualities  of  mind  and  of 
temperament  that  may  in  time  greatly  enrich  the  more 
severe  and  practical-minded  races  of  northern  Europe. 

But  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to  discuss  the 
question  of  immigration  restriction  or  the  kinds  of  tests 
that  should  be  applied  to  the  incoming  alien.  It  is 
rather  to  consider  the  internal  or  domestic  policy  we 
have  thus  far  adopted  after  the  immigrant  has  landed 
on  our  shores.  And  this  policy  has  been  wholly  nega 
tive.  Our  attitude  toward  the  immigrant  has  undergone 
little  change  from  the  very  beginning,  when  immigration 
was  easily  absorbed  by  the  free  lands  of  the  West.  Even 


OUR    FUTURE   IMMIGRATION    POLICY    35 

at  the  present  time  our  legislative  policy  is  an  outgrowth 
of  the  assumption  that  the  immigrant  could  go  to  the 
land  and  secure  a  homestead  of  his  own;  and  of  the 
additional  assumption  that  he  needed  no  assistance  or 
direction  when  he  reached  this  country  any  more  than 
did  the  immigrants  of  earlier  centuries. 

Up  to  the  present  time,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Oriental  races,  there  has  been  no  real  restriction  to 
immigration.  Our  policy  has  been  selective  rather  than 
restrictive.  Of  those  arriving  certain  individuals  are 
rejected  by  the  immigration  authorities  because  of  some 
defect  of  mind,  of  body,  or  of  morals,  or  because  of  age 
infirmity,  or  some  other  cause  by  reason  of  which  the 
aliens  are  likely  to  become  public  charges.  For  the 
official  year  1914,  of  the  1,218,480  applying  for  admis 
sion  15,745  were  excluded  because  they  were  likely  to 
become  a  public  charge;  6,537  were  afflicted  with  physical 
or  mental  infirmities  affecting  their  ability  to  earn  a 
living;  3,257  were  afflicted  with  tuberculosis  or  with 
contagious  diseases;  and  1,274  with  serious  mental  de 
fects.  All  told,  in  that  year  less  than  2  per  cent  of  the 
total  number  applying  for  admission  were  rejected  and 
sent  back  to  the  countries  from  which  they  came. 

Our  immigration  policy  ends  with  the  selection.  From 
the  stations  the  immigrants  pass  into  the  great  cities, 
chiefly  into  New  York,  or  are  placed  upon  the  trains 
leaving  the  ports  of  debarkation  for  the  interior.  They 
are  not  directed  to  any  destination,  and,  most  important 
of  all,  no  effort  is  made  to  place  them  on  the  land  under 
conditions  favorable  to  successful  agriculture.  And  this 
is  the  problem  of  the  future.  It  is  a  problem  far  bigger 
than  the  distribution  of  immigration.  It  is  a  problem 
of  our  entire  industrial  life.  For,  while  our  immigrants 
are  congested  in  the  cities  agriculture  suffers  from  a 
lack  of  labor.  Farms  are  being  abandoned.  Not  more 


36  FREDERIC    C.    HOWE 

than  one-third  of  the  land  in  the  United  States  is  under 
cultivation.  Far  more  important  still,  millions  of  acres 
are  held  out  of  use.  Land  monopoly  prevails  all  over 
the  Western  States.  According  to  the  most  available 
statistics  of  land  ownership,  approximately  200,000,000 
acres  are  owned  by  less  than  50,000  corporations  and 
individual  men.  Many  of  these  estates  exceed  10,000 
or  even  50,000  acres  in  extent.  Some  exceed  the  million 
mark.  States  like  California,  Texas,  Oregon,  Washing 
ton,  and  other  Western  States  have  great  manorial  pre 
serves  like  those  of  England,  Prussia,  and  Russia  which 
are  held  out  of  use  or  inadequately  used,  and  which 
have  increased  in  value  a  hundredfold  during  the  last 
fifty  years.  These  great  estates  are  largely  the  result 
of  the  land  grants  given  to  the  railroads  as  well  as  the 
careless  policy  of  the  government  in  the  disposal  of  the 
public  domain. 

Here  is  one  of  the  anomalies  of  the  nation.  Here  is 
the  real  explanation  of  the  immigration  problem.  Here, 
too,  is  the  division  between  the  "old  immigration"  and 
the  "new  immigration."  For  the  "old  immigration" 
from  the  north  of  Europe  went  to  the  country.  The 
"new  immigration"  has  gone  to  the  cities  because  the 
land  had  all  been  given  away  and  the  only  opportunity 
for  immediate  employment  was  to  be  found  in  the 
cities  and  mining  districts.  The  "new  immigration"  from 
the  South  of  Europe  is  as  eager  for  home-ownership  as 
the  "old  immigration"  from  the  north  of  Europe.  But 
the  land  is  all  gone,  and  the  incoming  alien  is  compelled 
to  accept  the  first  job  that  is  offered,  or  starve.  It  is 
this  too  that  has  stimulated  the  protest  on  the  part  of 
labor  against  the  incoming  tide.  For,  so  long  as  land 
was  accessible  for  all,  the  incoming  immigrants  went 
to  the  country,  where  they  could  build  their  fortunes  as 
they  willed,  just  as  they  did  in  earlier  generations. 


OUR    FUTURE    IMMIGRATION    POLICY     37 

The  European  War  has  forced  many  new  problems 
upon  us.  And  one  of  these  is  the  relation  of  people  to 
the  land.  Of  one  thing,  at  least,  we  may  be  certain  — 
that  with  the  ending  of  the  war  there  will  be  a  competi 
tion  for  men,  a  competition  not  only  by  the  exhausted 
Powers  of  Europe  but  by  Canada,  Australia,  and  America 
as  well.  Europe  will  endeavor  to  keep  its  able-bodied 
men  at  home.  They  will  be  needed  for  reconstruction 
purposes.  There  will  be  little  immigration  out  of  France ; 
for  France  is  a  nation  of  home-owning  peasants  and 
France  has  never  contributed  in  material  numbers  to 
our  population.  The  same  is  true  of  Germany.  Germany 
is  the  most  highly  socialized  state  in  Europe.  The  state 
owns  the  railways,  many  mines,  and  great  stretches  of 
land.  In  England  too  the  state  has  been  socialized  to  a 
remarkable  extent  as  a  result  of  the  war.  Russia  and 
Austria-Hungary  have  undergone  something  of  the 
same  transformation.  When  the  war  is  over  these  coun 
tries  will  probably  endeavor  to  mobilize  their  men  and 
women  for  industry  as  they  previously  mobilized  them 
for  war.  And  in  so  far  as  they  are  able  to  adjust  credit 
and  assistance  to  their  people,  they  will  strive  to  keep 
them  at  home. 

But  that  is  not  all.  Millions  of  men  have  been  killed 
or  incapacitated.  Poland,  Galicia,  parts  of  Hungary  and 
Russia  have  been  devastated.  Many  nobles  who  owned 
the  great  estates  have  been  killed.  Many  of  them  are 
bankrupt.  Their  land  holdings  may  be  broken  up  into 
small  farms.  The  state  can  only  go  on,  taxes  can  only 
be  collected  if  industry  and  agriculture  are  brought 
back  to  life.  And  the  nations  of  Europe  are  turning 
their  attention  to  a  consciously  worked  out  agricultural 
programme  for  putting  the  returning  soldiers  back  on 
the  land.  Not  only  that,  but  reports  from  steamship 
and  railroad  companies  indicate  that  large  numbers  of 


38  FREDERIC   C.   HOWE 

men  are  planning  to  return  to  Europe  after  the  war. 
The  estimates,  based  upon  investigation,  run  as  high 
as  a  million  men.  Poles  and  Hungarians  are  imbued 
with  the  idea  that  land  will  be  cheap  in  Europe  and  that 
the  savings  they  have  accumulated  in  this  country  can 
be  used  for  the  purchase  of  small  holdings  in  their 
native  country,  through  the  possession  of  which  their 
social  and  economic  status  will  be  materially  improved. 

I  have  no  doubt  but  that  the  years  which  follow  the  end 
ing  of  the  war  will  see  an  exodus  from  this  country  which 
may  be  as  great  as  the  incoming  tide  in  the  years  of  our 
highest  immigration.  Along  with  this  exodus  to  Europe, 
Canada  will  endeavor  to  repeople  her  land.  Western 
Canada  especially  is  working  out  an  agricultural  and  land 
programme.  Even  before  the  war  her  provinces  had 
removed  taxes  from  houses  and  improvements  and  were 
increasing  the  taxes  upon  vacant  land,  with  the  aim  of 
breaking  up  land  speculation.  And  this  policy  will 
probably  be  largely  extended  after  the  war  is  over. 
England,  too,  is  developing  a  comprehensive  land  policy, 
and  is  placing  returning  soldiers  upon  the  land  under 
conditions  similar  to  those  provided  in  the  Irish  Land 
Purchase  Act.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  war  will 
be  followed  by  a  breaking  up  of  many  of  the  great 
estates  in  England  and  the  settlement  of  many  men  upon 
the  land  in  farm  colonies,  such  as  have  been  worked  out 
in  Denmark  and  Germany.  Even  prior  to  the  war  Ger 
many  had  placed  hundreds  of  thousands  of  persons  upon 
the  state-owned  farms  and  on  private  estates  which  had 
been  acquired  by  the  government  for  this  purpose.  Over 
$400,000,000  has  been  appropriated  for  the  purpose  of 
encouraging  home-ownership  in  Germany  during  recent 
years. 

All  over  the  world,  in  fact,  the  necessity  of  a  new 
governmental  policy  in  regard  to  agriculture  is  being 


OUR    FUTURE   IMMIGRATION    POLICY    39 

recognized.  Thousands  of  Danish  agricultural  workers 
have  been  converted  into  home-owning  farmers  through 
the  aid  of  the  government.  To-day  90  per  cent  of  the 
farmers  in  Denmark  own  their  own  farms,  while  only 
10  per  cent  are  tenants.  The  government  advances  90 
per  cent  of  the  cost  of  a  farm,  the  farmer  being  required 
to  advance  only  the  remaining  10  per  cent.  In  addition, 
teachers  and  inspectors  employed  by  the  state  give  instruc 
tion  as  to  farming,  marketing,  and  the  use  of  cooperative 
agencies,  while  the  railroads  are  owned  by  the  state  and 
operated  with  an  eye  to  the  development  of  agriculture. 
As  a  result  of  this,  Denmark  has  become  the  world's 
agricultural  experiment-station.  The  immigration  from 
Denmark  has  practically  ceased,  as  it  has  from  other 
countries  of  Europe  in  which  peasant  proprietorship 
prevails. 

In  my  opinion,  immigration  to  the  United  States  will 
be  profoundly  influenced  by  these  big  land-colonization 
projects  of  the  European  nations.  It  may  be  that  large 
numbers  of  men  with  their  savings  will  be  lured  away 
from  the  United  States.  As  a  result,  agricultural  prod 
uce  in  the  United  States  may  be  materially  reduced. 
Even  now  there  is  a  great  shortage  of  agricultural  labor, 
while  tenancy  has  been  increasing  at  a  very  rapid  rate. 
And  America  may  be  confronted  with  the  immediate 
necessity  of  competing  with  Europe  to  keep  people  in 
this  country.  A  measure  is  now  before  Congress  looking 
to  the  development  of  farm  colonies,  in  which  the  gov 
ernment  will  acquire  large  stretches  of  land  to  be  sold 
on  easy  terms  of  payment  to  would-be  farmers,  who  are 
permitted  to  repay  the  initial  cost  in  installments  covering 
a  long  period  of  years.  Similar  measures  are  under 
discussion  in  California,  in  which  State  a  comprehensive 
investigation  has  been  made  of  the  subject  of  tenancy 
and  the  possibility  of  farm  settlement.  Looking  in  the 


40  FREDERIC    C.    HOWE 

same  direction  are  the  declarations  of  many  farmers' 
organizations  throughout  the  West  for  the  taxing  of  land 
as  a  means  of  ending  land  monopoly  and  land  specula 
tion.  This  is  one  of  the  cardinal  planks  in  the  platform 
of  the  non-partisan  organization  of  farmers  of  North 
Dakota  which  swept  the  State  in  the  last  election. 
Every  branch  of  the  government  was  captured  by  the 
farmers,  whose  platform  declared  for  the  untaxing  of 
all  kinds  of  farm-improvements  and  an  increase  in  the 
tax  rate  on  unimproved  land  as  a  means  of  developing 
the  State  and  ending  the  idle-land  speculation  which 
prevails. 

If  such  a  policy  as  this  were  adopted  for  the  nation 
as  a  whole;  if  the  idle  land  now  held  out  of  use  were 
opened  up  to  settlement;  if  the  government  were  to 
provide  ready-made  farms  to  be  paid  for  upon  easy 
terms,  and  if,  along  with  this,  facilities  for  marketing, 
for  terminals,  for  slaughter-houses,  and  for  agencies  for 
bringing  the  produce  of  the  farms  to  the  markets  were 
provided,  not  only  would  agriculture  be  given  a  fillip 
which  it  badly  needs  but  the  congestion  of  our  cities 
and  the  immigration  problem  would  be  open  to  easy 
solution.  Then  for  many  generations  to  come  land 
would  be  available  in  abundance.  For  America  could 
support  many  times  its  present  population  if  the  re 
sources  of  the  country  were  opened  up  to  use.  Germany 
with  67,000,000  people  could  be  placed  inside  of  Texas. 
And  Texas  is  but  one  of  forty-eight  States.  Under 
such  a  policy  the  government  could  direct  immigration 
to  places  of  profitable  settlement;  it  could  relieve  the 
congestion  of  the  cities  and  Americanize  the  immigrant 
under  conditions  similar  to  those  which  prevailed  from 
the  first  landing  in  New  England  down  to  the  enclosure 
of  the  continent  in  the  closing  days  of  the  last  century. 


OUR    FUTURE   IMMIGRATION   POLICY    41 

For  the  immigration  problem  is  and  always  has  been  an 
economic  problem.  And  back  of  all  other  conditions  of 
national  well-being  is  the  proper  relation  of  the  people 
to  the  land. 


A  NEW  RELATIONSHIP  BETWEEN 
CAPITAL   AND   LABOR1 

JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER,  JR. 

The  experience  through  which  our  country  has  passed 
in  the  months  of  war,  exhibiting  as  it  has  the  willingness 
of  all  Americans  without  distinction  of  race,  creed,  or 
class  to  sacrifice  personal  ends  for  a  great  ideal  and  to 
work  together  in  a  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  cooperation, 
has  been  a  revelation  to  our  own  people,  and  a  cause  for 
congratulations  to  us  all.  Now  that  the  stimulus  of  the 
war  is  over  the  question  which  confronts  our  nation  is 
how  can  these  high  levels  of  unselfish  devotion  to  the 
common  good  be  maintained  and  extended  to  the  civic 
life  of  the  nation  in  times  of  peace. 

We  have  been  called  together  to  consider  the  indus 
trial  problem.  Only  as  each  of  us  discharges  his  duties 
as  a  member  of  this  conference  in  the  same  high  spirit 
of  patriotism,  of  unselfish  allegiance  to  right  and  justice, 
of  devotion  to  the  principles  of  democracy  and  brother 
hood  with  which  we  approached  the  problems  of  the 
war,  can  we  hope  for  success  in  the  solution  of  the 
industrial  problem  which  is  no  less  vital  to  the  life  of 
the  nation.  There  are  pessimists  who  say  that  there  is 
no  solution  short  of  revolution  and  the  overturn  of  the 
existing  social  order.  Surely  the  men  and  women  who 
have  shown  themselves  capable  of  such  lofty  sacrifice, 
who  have  actually  given  themselves  so  freely,  gladly, 

1  Address  at  the  National  Industrial  Conference,  Washington, 
D.  C.,  Oct.  16,  1919.  By  permission. 

42 


CAPITAL   AND    LABOR  43 

unreservedly,  as  the  people  of  this  great  country  have 
during  these  past  years,  will  stand  together  as  unselfishly 
in  solving  this  great  industrial  problem  as  they  did  in 
dealing  with  the  problems  of  the  war  if  only  right  is 
made  clear  and  the  way  to  a  solution  pointed  out. 

The  world  position  which  our  country  holds  to-day  is 
due  to  the  wide  vision  of  the  statesmen  who  founded 
these  United  States  and  to  the  daring  and  indomitable 
persistence  of  the  great  industrial  leaders,  together  with 
the  myriads  of  men  who  with  faith  in  their  leadership 
have  cooperated  to  rear  the  marvelous  industrial  struc 
ture  of  which  our  country  is  justly  so  proud.  This  result 
has  been  produced  by  the  cooperation  of  the  four  factors 
in  industry,  labor,  capital,  management  and  the  public, 
the  last  represented  by  the  consumer  and  by  organized 
government.  No  one  of  these  groups  can  alone  claim 
credit  for  what  has  been  accomplished.  Just  what  is 
the  relative  importance  of  the  contribution  made  to  the 
success  of  industry  by  these  several  factors  and  what 
their  relative  rewards  should  be  are  debatable  questions. 
But  however  views  may  differ  on  these  questions  it  is 
clear  that  the  common  interest  cannot  be  advanced  by 
the  effort  of  any  one  party  to  dominate  the  other,  to 
dictate  arbitrarily  the  terms  on  which  alone  it  will  co 
operate,  to  threaten  to  withdraw  if  any  attempt  is 
made  to  thwart  the  enforcement  of  its  will.  Such  a 
position  is  as  un-American  as  it  is  intolerable. 

Almost  countless  are  the  suggested  solutions  of  the 
industrial  problem  which  have  been  brought  forth  since 
industry  first  began  to  be  a  problem.  Most  of  these 
are  impracticable;  some  are  unjust;  some  are  selfish  and 
therefore  unworthy ;  some  of  them  have  merit  and  should 
be  carefully  studied.  None  can  be  looked  to  as  a 
panacea.  There  are  those  who  believe  that  legislation 
is  the  cure-all  for  every  social,  economic,  political,  and 


44  JOHN    D.    ROCKEFELLER,   JR. 

industrial  ill.  Much  can  be  done  by  legislation  to  pre 
vent  injustice  and  encourage  right  tendencies,  but  legis 
lation  will  never  solve  the  industrial  problem.  Its  solu 
tion  can  be  brought  about  only  by  the  introduction  of  a 
new  spirit  into  the  relationship  between  the  parties  to 
industry  —  a  spirit  of  justice  and  brotherhood. 

The  personal  relationship  which  existed  in  bygone 
days  is  essential  to  the  development  of  this  new  spirit. 
It  must  be  reestablished;  if  not  in  its  original  form  at 
least  as  nearly  so  as  possible.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
development  of  industry,  the  employer  and  capital  in 
vestor  were  frequently  one.  Daily  contact  was  had 
between  him  and  his  employees,  who  were  his  friends  and 
neighbors.  Any  questions  which  arose  on  either  side 
were  taken  up  at  once  and  readily  adjusted.  A  feeling  of 
genuine  friendliness,  mutual  confidence,  and  stimulating 
interest  in  the  common  enterprise  was  the  result.  How 
different  is  the  situation  to-day!  Because  of  the  pro 
portions  which  modern  industry  has  attained,  employers 
and  employees  are  too  often  strangers  to  each  other. 
Personal  contact,  so  vital  to  the  success  of  any  enterprise, 
is  practically  unknown,  and  naturally,  misunderstanding, 
suspicion,  distrust,  and  too  often  hatred  have  developed, 
bringing  in  their  train  all  the  industrial  ills  which  have 
become  far  too  common.  Where  men  are  strangers  and 
have  no  points  of  contact,  this  is  the  usual  outcome. 
On  the  other  hand,  where  men  meet  frequently  about  a 
table,  rub  elbows,  exchange  views  and  discuss  matters 
of  common  interest,  almost  invariably  it  happens  that 
the  vast  majority  of  their  differences  quickly  disappear 
and  friendly  relations  are  established.  Much  of  the 
strife  and  bitterness  in  industrial  relations  results  from 
lack  of  ability  or  willingness  on  the  part  of  both  labor 
and  capital  to  view  their  common  problems  each  from 
the  other's  point  of  view. 


CAPITAL   AND    LABOR  45 

A  man  who  recently  devoted  some  months  to  studying 
the  industrial  problem  and  who  came  in  contact  with 
thousands  of  workmen  in  various  industries  throughout 
the  country  has  said  that  it  was  obvious  to  him  from  the 
outset  that  the  working  men  were  seeking  for  some 
thing,  which  at  first  he  thought  to  be  higher  wages.  As 
his  touch  with  them  extended,  he  came  to  the  con 
clusion,  however,  that  not  higher  wages  but  recognition 
as  men  was  what  they  really  sought.  What  joy  can 
there  be  in  life,  what  interest  can  a  man  take  in  his 
work,  what  enthusiasm  can  he  be  expected  to  develop  on 
behalf  of  his  employer,  when  he  is  regarded  as  a  num 
ber  on  a  payroll,  a  cog  in  a  wheel,  a  mere  "hand"?  Who 
would  not  earnestly  seek  to  gain  recognition  of  his  man 
hood  and  the  right  to  be  heard  and  treated  as  a  human 
being,  not  as  a  machine? 

While  obviously  under  present  conditions  those  who 
invest  their  capital  in  an  industry,  often  numbered  by 
the  thousand,  cannot  have  personal  acquaintance  with 
the  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  those  who  invest 
their  labor,  contact  between  these  two  parties  in  interest 
can  and  must  be  established,  if  not  directly  then  through 
their  respective  representatives.  The  resumption  of  such 
personal  relation  through  frequent  conference  and  cur 
rent  meetings,  held  for  the  consideration  of  matters  of 
common  interest  such  as  terms  of  employment,  and 
working  and  living  conditions,  is  essential  in  order  to 
restore  a  spirit  of  mutual  confidence,  good  will,  and  co 
operation.  Personal  relations  can  be  revived  under 
modern  conditions  only  through  the  adequate  representa 
tion  of  the  employees.  Representation  is  a  principle 
which  is  fundamentally  just  and  vital  to  the  successful 
conduct  of  industry.  This  is  the  principle  upon  which 
the  democratic  government  of  our  country  is  founded. 
On  the  battlefields  of  France  this  nation  poured  out  its 


46  JOHN   D.   ROCKEFELLER,   JR. 

blood  freely  in  order  that  democracy  might  be  maintained 
at  home  and  that  its  beneficent  institutions  might  be 
come  available  in  other  lands  as  well.  Surely  it  is 
not  consistent  for  us  as  Americans  to  demand  democracy 
in  government  and  practice  autocracy  in  industry. 

What  can  this  conference  do  to  further  the  establish 
ment  of  democracy  in  industry  and  lay  a  sure  and  solid 
foundation  for  the  permanent  development  of  coopera 
tion,  good-will,  and  industrial  well  being?  To  undertake 
to  agree  on  the  details  of  plans  and  methods  is  apt  to 
lead  to  endless  controversy  without  constructive  result. 
Can  we  not,  however,  unite  in  the  adoption  of  the  prin 
ciple  of  representation,  and  the  agreement  to  make  every 
effort  to  secure  the  endorsement  and  acceptance  of  this 
principle  by  all  chambers  of  commerce,  industrial  and 
commercial  bodies,  and  all  organizations  of  labor?  Such 
action  I  feel  confident  would  be  overwhelmingly  backed 
by  public  opinion  and  cordially  approved  by  the  fed 
eral  government.  The  assurance  thus  given  of  a  closer 
relationship  between  the  parties  to  industry  would  further 
justice,  promote  good-will,  and  help  to  bridge  the  gulf 
between  capital  and  labor. 

It  is  not  for  this  or  any  other  body  to  undertake  to 
determine  for  industry  at  large  what  form  representation 
shall  take.  Once  having  adopted  the  principle  of  repre 
sentation,  it  is  obviously  wise  that  the  method  to  be 
employed  should  be  left  in  each  specific  instance  to  be 
determined  by  the  parties  in  interest.  If  there  is  to  be 
peace  and  good  will  between  the  several  parties  in  in 
dustry,  it  will  surely  not  be  brought  about  by  the  en 
forcement  upon  unwilling  groups  of  a  method  which  in 
their  judgment  is  not  adapted  to  their  peculiar  needs. 
In  this  as  in  all  else,  persuasion  is  an  essential  element 
in  bringing  about  conviction.  With  the  developments 
in  industry  what  they  are  to-day  there  is  sure  to  come  a 


CAPITAL   AND   LABOR  47 

progressive  evolution  from  autocratic  single  control, 
whether  by  capital,  labor,  or  the  state,  to  democratic 
cooperative  control  by  all  three.  The  whole  movement 
is  evolutionary.  That  which  is  fundamental  is  the  idea 
of  representation,  and  that  idea  must  find  expression  in 
those  forms  which  will  serve  it  best,  with  conditions, 
forces,  and  times,  what  they  are. 


MY  UNCLE1 

ALVIN  JOHNSON 

My  uncle  only  by  marriage,  he  is  naturally  the  less 
intelligible  and  the  more  intriguing  to  me.  I  can't  say 
with  assurance  whether  I  feel  absolutely  at  home  with 
him  or  not,  but  I  think  I  do.  Always  he  has  treated 
me  with  the  utmost  kindness.  That  he  regards  me 
exactly  as  a  nephew  of  the  blood,  he  makes  frequent 
occasion  to  assure  me,  especially  on  his  birthday,  which 
we  all  make  much  of,  since  it  is  about  the  only  day  when 
we  are  chartered  to  sentimentalize  quite  shamelessly  over 
him.  But  behind  his  solemn  face  and  straight,  quizzical 
gaze,  I  often  detect  a  lurking  reservation  in  his  judgment 
of  me.  He  thinks,  I  believe,  that  I  have  not  been 
altogether  weaned  of  the  potentates  and  powers  I  ab 
jured  when  I  crossed  the  water  to  become  a  member  of 
his  family.  Not  that  he  greatly  cares.  Potentates  and 
powers,  emperors,  kings,  princes,  are  treasured  words  in 
his  oratorical  vocabulary  —  he  could  not  very  well  do 
without  them.  He  is  a  democrat,  and  he  declares  that 
in  the  presence  of  hereditary  majesties,  he  would  most 
resolutely  refuse  to  bend  the  knee.  No  doubt  he  would, 
and  his  instinct  is  correct  aesthetically  as  well  as  morally. 
It's  a  stiff  knee  he  wears,  and  you  can't  help  smiling  at 
the  thought  of  the  two  long  members  of  his  leg,  tightly- 
cased  in  striped  trousers,  arranging  themselves  in  an 

1  Reprinted  from  John  Stuyvesant,  Ancestor,  by  Alvin  Johnson. 
Copyright,  1919,  by  Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe,  Inc.  By  per 
mission  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers. 

48 


MY    UNCLE  49 

obsequious  right  angle.  Erect  and  stiff,  chest  out,  chin 
whiskers  to  front,  eyes  blinking  independently,  my  uncle 
is  superb.  Or  when  he  raises  his  hat  with  a  large,  out 
ward  gesture  of  his  arm,  bowing  slightly  from  the 
shoulders,  in  affable  salutation.  Or  most  of  all,  when 
his  fists  clench,  his  jaws  display  big  nervous  knots,  his 
eyes  gleam  with  hard  blue  light  in  wrath  over  some  pal 
pable  iniquity,  some  base  cowardice,  some  outrageous 
act  of  cruelty  or  oppression. 

The  mood  of  rage  is,  to  be  sure,  infrequent  with  him, 
and  he  prides  himself  in  a  self-control  that  forbids  him  to 
act  upon  it.  Therefore,  certain  cocky  foreign  fellows, 
upholders  of  the  duty  of  fighting  at  the  drop  of  the  hat, 
have  charged  that  our  uncle  would  place  peace  above 
honor.  And  some  of  us,  his  nephews,  are  not  exactly 
easy  under  the  charge.  It  seems  to  reflect  on  us.  But 
most  of  us  really  know  better.  Our  uncle  hates  trouble, 
and  prefers  argument  to  fists.  But  nobody  had  better 
presume  too  much  upon  his  distaste  for  violence. 

Pugnacity,  declares  my  uncle,  is  a  form  of  senti- 
mentalism,  and  all  sentimentalism  is  despicable.  This 
is  a  practical  world.  Determine  the  value  of  what  you  are 
after  and  count  the  cost.  And  wherever  you  can,  re 
duce  all  items  to  dollars  and  cents.  "Aha!"  cry  the 
hostile  critics  of  our  house,  "what  a  gross  materialist!" 
And  some,  even  of  the  nephews  of  the  blood,  repeat  the 
taunt  behind  our  good  uncle's  back.  At  first  I  too 
thought  there  might  be  something  in  it.  But  I  was 
forced  to  a  different  view  by  dint  of  reflection  on  the 
notorious  fact  that  my  uncle  is  far  readier  in  a  good 
cause  to  "shell  out"  his  dollars  and  cents  than  any  of 
his  idealistic  critics.  Reduction  of  a  problem  to  dollars 
and  cents,  I  have  come  to  see,  is  just  his  means  of 
arriving  at  definiteness.  My  uncle  wants  to  do  a  good 
business,  whether  in  the  gross  joys  of  the  flesh  or  in 


SO  ALVIN   JOHNSON 

the  benefits  of  salvation.  The  Lord's  cause,  he  thinks, 
ought  to  be  as  solvent  as  the  world's.  A  naive  view? 
To  be  sure,  but  not  one  that  argues  a  base  soul. 

This  insistence  of  my  uncle  on  definiteness,  on  the 
financial  solvency  of  every  enterprise,  does  to  be  sure 
get  on  the  nerves  of  many  of  us.  He'll  drop  into  your 
studio,  dispose  his  long,  bony  body  in  your  most  com 
fortable  chair  and  ruminate  for  hours  while  you  work. 
You  are  immersed  in  a  very  significant  problem.  You 
are  at  the  point,  we  will  say,  of  discovering  how  to 
convey  the  sound  of  bells  by  pure  color.  "May  I  ask," 
he  says  finally,  "what  in  thunder  are  you  trying  to  do?" 
You  explain  at  length,  enthusiastically.  He  hears  you 
through,  with  visible  effort  to  suspend  judgment.  You 
pause  and  scan  his  face  for  a  responsive  glow.  He  rises, 
pats  you  gently  on  the  shoulder.  "My  boy,  I  can  put 
you  into  a  good  job  down  in  the  stockyards.  Fine 
prospects,  and  a  good  salary  to  begin  with.  I  ran  in 
to  see  your  wife  and  youngsters  yesterday  and  they're 
looking  rather  peaked.  Not  much  of  a  living  for  them 
in  this  sort  of  thing,  you  know.  Of  course  it  is  mighty 
interesting.  But  don't  you  think  you  could  manage 
to  do  something  with  it  in  your  free  time?" 

It  can't  be  denied,  in  the  matter  of  the  family  relation 
my  uncle  is  hopelessly  reactionary.  In  his  view  almost 
the  whole  duty  of  man  is  to  keep  his  wife  well  housed, 
well  dressed,  contented,  and  his  children  plump  and 
rosy.  To  abate  a  tittle  from  this  requirement  my  uncle 
regards  as  pure  embezzlement.  You  try  to  make  him 
see  the  counterclaims  upon  you  of  science,  literature, 
art.  "Yes,  yes,  those  things  are  all  very  fine,  but  will 
you  rob  your  own  wife  and  children  for  them?" 

I  wonder  whether  this  myopia  of  my  uncle  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  he  is  a  confirmed  old  bachelor,  and  all 
women  and  children  are  to  him  pure  ideals,  as  much 


MY    UNCLE  51 

sweeter  than  all  other  ideals  as  they  are  more  substantial? 
He  poses,  to  be  sure,  as  a  depreciator  of  woman.  "Just 
like  a  woman,"  "women's  frivolity,"  "useless  little  femi 
nine  trinkets,"  are  phrases  always  on  his  lips.  But 
watch  his  caressing  expression  as  he  listens  to  the  chatter 
of  Cousin  Thisbe,  the  most  empty-headed  little  creature 
who  ever  wore  glowing  cheeks  and  bright  curls.  Let 
anybody  get  into  trouble  with  his  wife  or  sweetheart,  and 
my  uncle  straightway  takes  up  the  cudgels  for  the  lady. 
The  merits  of  the  case  don't  matter:  a  lady  is  always 
right,  or  if  she  isn't,  it's  a  mighty  mean  man  who'll  insist 
on  it. 

His  nephews  of  the  blood  are  firmly  convinced  that 
the  reason  why  our  uncle  is  such  a  fool  about  women  in 
general  is  because  he  has  never  been  in  love  with  any 
woman  in  particular.  Thus  do  members  of  a  family 
blind  themselves  with  dogmas  about  one  another.  I, 
being  more  or  less  of  an  outsider,  can  observe  without 
preconceptions.  Now  I  assert,  in  spite  of  his  consistent 
pose  of  serene  indifference  to  particular  charms,  my 
uncle's  temperament  is  that  of  a  man  forever  in  love 
with  somebody  or  other.  He  is  strong,  he  is  simple,  he 
is  pure,  and  should  he  escape  the  dart?  Depend  on  it, 
he  has  fallen  in  love  not  once  or  twice,  but  often  and 
often.  And  the  probabilities  are,  he  has  been  loved, 
though  not  so  often.  And  —  this  would  be  an  impious 
speculation  if  I  were  nephew  of  the  blood  —  how  has  he 
behaved,  in  the  rare  latter  event?  As  a  man  in  the 
presence  of  a  miracle  done  for  his  sole  benefit.  He  has 
exulted,  then  doubted  its  reality,  then  betaken  himself 
to  the  broad  prairie,  where  he  is  most  at  home,  to  cool 
his  blood  in  the  north  wind,  and  restore  himself  to  the 
serenity,  the  freedom  from  entanglements,  befitting  an 
uncle  at  the  head  of  his  tribe.  This,  you  say,  is  all  con 
jecture,  deduced  from  the  behavior  of  those  of  his 


52  ALVIN   JOHNSON 

nephews  who  most  resemble  him?  No.  Do  you  not  re 
call  that  early  affair  of  his,  with  the  dark  vivacious 
lady  —  Marianne,  I  believe,  was  her  name?  Do  you  not 
recall  a  later  affair  with  a  very  young,  cold  lady  from 
the  land  of  the  snows?  Do  you  not  recall  his  maturer 
devotion  to  the  noble  lady  of  the  trident,  his  cousin? 
And  —  but  I'll  not  descend  to  idle  gossip. 

As  you  can  see,  I  do  not  wholly  accept  my  uncle,  as 
he  is.  I  wish  he  weren't  so  insistent  upon  reducing 
everything  to  simple,  definite  terms,  whether  it  will  re 
duce  to  such  terms  or  not.  I  wish  he  would  give  more 
thought  to  making  his  conduct  correct  as  well  as  unim 
peachable.  I'm  for  him  when  his  inferiors  laugh  at  him, 
but  I  wish  he  would  manage  to  thwart  their  malicious  de 
sire  to  laugh.  I  wish  he  were  less  disposed  to  scoff  gently 
at  my  attempts  to  direct  his  education.  Just  the  same,  he 
is  the  biggest,  kindliest,  most  honest  and  honorable  tribal 
head  that  ever  lived.  And  you  won't  find  a  trace  of 
these  reservations  in  the  enthusiasm  with  which  I  shall 
wish  him  many  thousands  of  happy  returns,  next  Fourth 
of  July. 


WHEN  A  MAN  COMES  TO  HIMSELF * 
WOODROW  WILSON 

It  is  a  very  wholesome  and  regenerating  change  which 
a  man  undergoes  when  he  "comes  to  himself."  It  is 
not  only  after  periods  of  recklessness  or  infatuation, 
when  he  has  played  the  spendthrift  or  the  fool,  that 
a  man  comes  to  himself.  He  comes  to  himself  after 
experiences  of  which  he  alone  may  be  aware:  when  he 
has  left  off  being  wholly  preoccupied  with  his  own  powers 
and  interests  and  with  every  petty  plan  that  centers  in 
himself;  when  he  has  cleared  his  eyes  to  see  the  world 
as  it  is,  and  his  own  true  place  and  function  in  it. 

It  is  a  process  of  disillusionment.  The  scales  have 
fallen  away.  He  sees  himself  soberly,  and  knows  under 
what  conditions  his  powers  must  act,  as  well  as  what 
his  powers  are.  He  has  got  rid  of  earlier  prepossessions 
about  the  world  of  men  and  affairs,  both  those  which 
were  too  favorable  and  those  which  were  too  unfavor 
able —  both  those  of  the  nursery  and  those  of  a  young 
man's  reading.  He  has  learned  his  own  paces,  or,  at 
any  rate,  is  in  a  fair  way  to  learn  them;  has  found  his 
footing  and  the  true  nature  of  the  "going"  he  must  look 
for  in  the  world;  over  what  sorts  of  roads  he  must  expect 
to  make  his  running,  and  at  what  expenditure  of  effort; 
whither  his  goal  lies,  and  what  cheer  he  may  expect  by 

1  From  The  Century  Magazine,  June,  1901.  Copyright  1901, 
by  Harper  and  Brothers,  and  published  by  them  in  1915  in  a 
volume  entitled  When  a  Man  Comes  to  Himself.  By  per 
mission  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers. 

S3 


54  WOODROW   WILSON 

the  way.  It  is  a  process  of  disillusionment,  but  it  dis 
heartens  no  soundly  made  man.  It  brings  him  into  a 
light  which  guides  instead  of  deceiving  him;  a  light  which 
does  not  make  the  way  look  cold  to  any  man  whose 
eyes  are  fit  for  use  in  the  open,  but  which  shines  whole 
somely,  rather,  upon  the  obvious  path,  like  the  honest 
rays  of  the  frank  sun,  and  makes  traveling  both  safe 
and  cheerful. 

There  is  no  fixed  time  in  a  man's  life  at  which  he 
comes  to  himself,  and  some  men  never  come  to  them 
selves  at  all.  It  is  a  change  reserved  for  the  thoroughly 
sane  and  healthy,  and  for  those  who  can  detach  them 
selves  from  tasks  and  drudgery  long  and  often  enough 
to  get,  at  any  rate  once  and  again,  view  of  the  propor 
tions  of  life  and  of  the  stage  and  plot  of  its  action.  We 
speak  often  with  amusement,  sometimes  with  distaste 
and  uneasiness,  of  men  who  "have  no  sense  of  humor," 
who  take  themselves  too  seriously,  who  are  intense,  self- 
absorbed,  over-confident  in  matters  of  opinion,  or  else 
go  plumed  with  conceit,  proud  of  we  cannot  tell  what, 
enjoying,  appreciating,  thinking  of  nothing  so  much  as 
themselves.  These  are  men  who  have  not  suffered  that 
wholesome  change.  They  have  not  come  to  themslves. 
If  they  be  serious  men,  and  real  forces  in  the  world,  we 
may  conclude  that  they  have  been  too  much  and  too  long 
absorbed;  that  their  tasks  and  responsibilities  long  ago 
rose  about  them  like  a  flood,  and  have  kept  them  swim 
ming  with  sturdy  stroke  the  years  through,  their  eyes 
level  with  the  troubled  surface  —  no  horizon  in  sight, 
no  passing  fleets,  no  comrades  but  those  who  struggle 
in  the  flood  like  themselves.  If  they  be  frivolous,  light 
headed,  men  without  purpose  or  achievement,  we  may 
conjecture,  if  we  do  not  know,  that  they  were  born  so, 
or  spoiled  by  fortune,  or  befuddled  by  self-indulgence. 
It  is  no  great  matter  what  we  think  of  them. 


WHEN   A   MAN   COMES   TO   HIMSELF     55 

It  is  enough  to  know  that  there  are  some  laws  which 
govern  a  man's  awakening  to  know  himself  and  the 
right  part  to  play.  A  man  is  the  part  he  plays  among  his 
fellows.  He  is  not  isolated;  he  cannot  be.  His  life  is 
made  up  of  the  relations  he  bears  to  others  —  is  made 
or  marred  by  those  relations,  guided  by  them,  judged 
by  them,  expressed  in  them.  There  is  nothing  else  upon 
which  he  can  spend  his  spirit  —  nothing  else  that  we 
can  see.  It  is  by  these  he  gets  his  spiritual  growth; 
it  is  by  these  we  see  his  character  revealed,  his  pur 
pose,  and  his  gifts.  Some  play  with  a  certain  natural 
passion,  an  unstudied  directness,  without  grace,  without 
modulation,  with  no  study  of  the  masters  or  consciousness 
of  the  pervading  spirit  of  the  plot;  others  give  all 
their  thought  to  their  costume  and  think  only  of  the 
audience;  a  few  act  as  those  who  have  mastered  the 
secrets  of  a  serious  art,  with  deliberate  subordination  of 
themselves  to  the  great  end  and  motive  of  the  play,  spend 
ing  themselves  like  good  servants,  indulging  no  wilfulness, 
obtruding  no  eccentricity,  lending  heart  and  tone  and 
gesture  to  the  perfect  progress  of  the  action.  These  have 
"found  themselves,"  and  have  all  the  ease  of  a  perfect 
adjustment. 

Adjustment  is  exactly  what  a  man  gains  when  he 
comes  to  himself.  Some  men  gain  it  late,  some  early; 
some  get  it  all  at  once,  as  if  by  one  distinct  act  of 
deliberate  accommodation;  others  get  it  by  degrees  and 
quite  imperceptibly.  No  doubt  to  most  men  it  comes 
by  the  slow  processes  of  experience  —  at  each  stage  of 
life  a  little.  A  college  man  feels  the  first  shock  of  it 
at  graduation,  when  the  boy's  life  has  been  lived  out 
and  the  man's  life  suddenly  begins.  He  has  measured 
himself  with  boys,  he  knows  their  code  and  feels  the 
spur  of  their  ideals  of  achievement.  But  what  the  world 
expects  of  him  he  has  yet  to  find  out,  and  it  works, 


56  WOODROW   WILSON 

when  he  has  discovered  it,  a  veritable  revolution  in 
his  ways  both  of  thought  and  of  action.  He  finds  a 
new  sort  of  fitness  demanded  of  him,  executive,  thorough 
going,  careful  of  details,  full  of  drudgery  and  obedience 
to  orders.  Everybody  is  ahead  of  him.  Just  now  he 
was  a  senior,  at  the  top  of  a  world  he  knew  and  reigned 
in,  a  finished  product  and  pattern  of  good  form.  Of  a 
sudden  he  is  a  novice  again,  as  green  as  in  his  first 
school  year,  studying  a  thing  that  seems  to  have  no 
rules  —  at  sea  amid  cross-winds,  and  a  bit  seasick  withal. 
Presently,  if  he  be  made  of  stuff  that  will  shake  into 
shape  and  fitness,  he  settles  to  his  tasks  and  is  com 
fortable.  He  has  come  to  himself:  understands  what 
capacity  is,  and  what  it  is  meant  for;  sees  that  his 
training  was  not  for  ornament,  or  personal  gratification, 
but  to  teach  him  how  to  use  himself  and  develop  faculties 
worth  using.  Henceforth  there  is  a  zest  in  action,  and 
he  loves  to  see  his  strokes  tell. 

The  same  thing  happens  to  the  lad  come  from  the 
farm  into  the  city,  a  big  and  novel  field,  where  crowds 
rush  and  jostle,  and  a  rustic  boy  must  stand  puzzled  for 
a  little  how  to  use  his  placid  and  unjaded  strength.  It 
happens,  too,  though  in  a  deeper  and  more  subtle  way, 
to  the  man  who  marries  for  love,  if  the  love  be  true  and 
fit  for  foul  weather.  Mr.  Bagehot  used  to  say  that  a 
bachelor  was  "an  amateur  in  life,"  and  wit  and  wisdom 
are  married  in  the  jest.  A  man  who  lives  only  for  him 
self  has  not  begun  to  live  —  has  yet  to  learn  his  use, 
and  his  real  pleasure  too,  in  the  world.  It  is  not  neces 
sary  he  should  marry  to  find  himself  out,  but  it  is 
necessary  he  should  love.  Men  have  come  to  them 
selves  serving  their  mothers  with  an  unselfish  devotion, 
or  their  sisters,  or  a  cause  for  whose  sake  they  forsook 
ease  and  left  off  thinking  of  themselves.  It  is  unselfish 
action,  growing  slowly  into  the  high  habit  of  devotion, 


WHEN   A    MAN    COMES    TO   HIMSELF      57 

and  at  last,  it  may  be,  into  a  sort  of  consecration,  that 
teaches  a  man  the  wide  meaning  of  his  life,  and  makes 
of  him  a  steady  professional  in  living,  if  the  motive  be 
not  necessity,  but  love.  Necessity  may  make  a  mere 
drudge  of  a  man,  and  no  mere  drudge  ever  made  a 
professional  of  himself;  that  demands  a  higher  spirit  and 
a  finer  incentive  than  his. 

Surely  a  man  has  come  to  himself  only  when  he  has 
found  the  best  that  is  in  him,  and  has  satisfied  his  heart 
with  the  highest  achievement  he  is  fit  for.  It  is  only 
then  that  he  knows  of  what  he  is  capable  and  what  his 
heart  demands.  And,  assuredly,  no  thoughtful  man  ever 
came  to  the  end  of  his  life,  and  had  time  and  a  little 
space  of  calm  from  which  to  look  back  upon  it,  who 
did  not  know  and  acknowledge  that  it  was  what  he  had 
done  unselfishly  and  for  others,  and  nothing  else,  that 
satisfied  him  in  the  retrospect,  and  made  him  feel  that 
he  had  played  the  man.  That  alone  seems  to  him  the 
real  measure  of  himself,  the  real  standard  of  his  man 
hood.  And  so  men  grow  by  having  responsibility  laid 
upon  them,  the  burden  of  other  people's  business. 
Their  powers  are  put  out  at  interest,  and  they  get  usury 
in  kind.  They  are  like  men  multiplied.  Each  counts 
manifold.  Men  who  live  with  an  eye  only  upon  what 
is  their  own  are  dwarfed  beside  them  —  seem  fractions 
while  they  are  integers.  The  trustworthiness  of  men 
trusted  seems  often  to  grow  with  the  trust. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  men  are  in  love  with  power 
and  greatness:  it  affords  them  so  pleasurable  an  expan 
sion  of  faculty,  so  large  a  run  for  their  minds,  an  exer 
cise  of  spirit  so  various  and  refreshing;  they  have  the 
freedom  of  so  wide  a  tract  of  the  world  of  affairs.  But 
if  they  use  power  only  for  their  own  ends,  if  there  be 
no  unselfish  service  in  it,  if  its  object  be  only  their  per 
sonal  aggrandizement,  their  love  to  see  other  men  tools 


58  WOODROW   WILSON 

in  their  hands,  they  go  out  of  the  world  small,  disquieted, 
beggared,  no  enlargement  of  soul  vouchsafed  them,  no 
usury  of  satisfaction.  They  have  added  nothing  to 
themselves.  Mental  and  physical  powers  alike  grow  by 
use,  as  every  one  knows;  but  labor  for  one's  self  alone 
is  like  exercise  in  a  gymnasium.  No  healthy  man  can 
remain  satisfied  with  it,  or  regard  it  as  anything  but  a 
preparation  for  tasks  in  the  open,  amid  the  affairs  of  the 
world  —  not  sport,  but  business  —  where  there  is  no 
orderly  apparatus,  and  every  man  must  devise  the  means 
by  which  he  is  to  make  the  most  of  himself.  To  make  the 
most  of  himself  means  the  multiplication  of  his  activities, 
and  he  must  turn  away  from  himself  for  that.  He  looks 
about  him,  studies  the  face  of  business  or  of  affairs, 
catches  some  intimation  of  their  larger  objects,  is  guided 
by  the  intimation,  and  presently  finds  himself  part  of  the 
motive  force  of  communities  or  of  nations.  It  makes 
no  difference  how  small  a  part,  how  insignificant,  how 
unnoticed.  When  his  powers  begin  to  play  outward,  and 
he  loves  the  task  at  hand  not  because  it  gains  him  a 
livelihood  but  because  it  makes  him  a  life,  he  has  come 
to  himself. 

Necessity  is  no  mother  to  enthusiasm.  Necessity  car 
ries  a  whip.  Its  method  is  compulsion,  not  love.  It 
has  no  thought  to  make  itself  attractive;  it  is  content 
to  drive.  Enthusiasm  comes  with  the  revelation  of  true 
and  satisfying  objects  of  devotion;  and  it  is  enthusiasm 
that  sets  the  powers  free.  It  is  a  sort  of  enlightenment. 
It  shines  straight  upon  ideals,  and  for  those  who  see  it 
the  race  and  struggle  are  henceforth  toward  these.  An 
instance  will  point  the  meaning.  One  of  the  most  dis 
tinguished  and  most  justly  honored  of  our  great  philan 
thropists  spent  the  major  part  of  his  life  absolutely  ab 
sorbed  in  the  making  of  money  —  so  it  seemed  to  those 
who  did  not  know  him.  In  fact,  he  had  very  early 


WHEN   A   MAN   COMES   TO   HIMSELF     59 

passed  the  stage  at  which  he  looked  upon  his  business 
as  a  means  of  support  or  of  material  comfort.  Business 
had  become  for  him  an  intellectual  pursuit,  a  study  in 
enterprise  and  increment.  The  field  of  commerce  lay 
before  him  like  a  chess-board;  the  moves  interested  him 
like  the  manoeuvres  of  a  game.  More  money  was  more 
power,  a  greater  advantage  in  the  game,  the  means  of 
shaping  men  and  events  and  markets  to  his  own  ends 
and  uses.  It  was  his  will  that  set  fleets  afloat  and  de 
termined  the  havens  they  were  bound  for;  it  was  his 
foresight  that  brought  goods  to  market  at  the  right 
time;  it  was  his  suggestion  that  made  the  industry  of 
unthinking  men  efficacious;  his  sagacity  saw  itself  justi 
fied  at  home  not  only,  but  at  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
And  as  the  money  poured  in,  his  government  and  mastery 
increased,  and  his  mind  was  the  more  satisfied.  It  is 
so  that  men  make  little  kingdoms  for  themselves,  and 
an  international  power  undarkened  by  diplomacy,  un 
directed  by  parliaments. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  great  captains  of 
industry,  the  great  organizers  and  directors  of  manufac 
ture  and  commerce  and  monetary  exchange,  are  engrossed 
in  a  vulgar  pursuit  of  wealth.  Too  often  they  suffer  the 
vulgarity  of  wealth  to  display  itself  in  the  idleness  and 
ostentation  of  their  wives  and  children,  who  "devote 
themselves,"  it  may  be,  "to  expense  regardless  of  pleas 
ure";  but  we  ought  not  to  misunderstand  even  that,  or 
condemn  it  unjustly.  The  masters  of  industry  are  often 
too  busy  with  their  own  sober  and  momentous  calling  to 
have  time  or  spare  thought  enough  to  govern  their  own 
households.  A  king  may  be  too  faithful  a  statesman 
to  be  a  watchful  father.  These  men  are  not  fascinated 
by  the  glitter  of  gold:  the  appetite  for  power  has  got 
hold  upon  them.  They  are  in  love  with  the  exercise  of 
their  faculties  upon  a  great  scale;  they  are  organizing 


60  WOODROW   WILSON 

and  overseeing  a  great  part  of  the  life  of  the  world. 
No  wonder  they  are  captivated.  Business  is  more  inter 
esting  than  pleasure,  as  Mr.  Bagehot  said,  and  when  once 
the  mind  has  caught  its  zest,  there's  no  disengaging  it. 
The  world  has  reason  to  be  grateful  for  the  fact. 

It  was  this  fascination  that  had  got  hold  upon  the 
faculties  of  the  man  whom  the  world  was  afterward  to 
know,  not  as  a  prince  among  merchants  —  for  the  world 
forgets  merchant  princes  —  but  as  a  prince  among  bene 
factors;  for  beneficence  breeds  gratitude,  gratitude  ad 
miration,  admiration  fame,  and  the  world  remembers  its 
benefactors.  Business,  and  business  alone,  interested 
him,  or  seemed  to  him  worth  while.  The  first  time  he 
was  asked  to  subscribe  money  for  a  benevolent  object 
he  declined.  Why  should  he  subscribe?  What  affair 
would  be  set  forward,  what  increase  of  efficiency  would 
the  money  buy,  what  return  would  it  bring  in?  Was 
good  money  to  be  simply  given  away,  like  water  poured 
on  a  barren  soil,  to  be  sucked  up  and  yield  nothing?  It 
was  not  until  men  who  understood  benevolence  on  its 
sensible,  systematic,  practical,  and  really  helpful  side 
explained  it  to  him  as  an  investment  that  his  mind 
took  hold  of  it  and  turned  to  it  for  satisfaction.  He 
began  to  see  that  education  was  a  thing  of  infinite  usury ; 
that  money  devoted  to  it  would  yield  a  singular  increase, 
to  which  there  was  no  calculable  end,  an  increase  in  per 
petuity  —  increase  of  knowledge,  and  therefore  of  intelli 
gence  and  efficiency,  touching  generation  after  generation 
with  new  impulses,  adding  to  the  sum  total  of  the  world's 
fitness  for  affairs  —  an  invisible  but  intensely  real  spirit 
ual  usury  beyond  reckoning,  because  compounded  in  an 
unknown  ratio  from  age  to  age.  Henceforward  benefi 
cence  was  as  interesting  to  him  as  business  —  was, 
indeed,  a  sort  of  sublimated  business  in  which  money 
moved  new  forces  in  a  commerce  which  no  man  could 
bind  or  limit. 


WHEN    A    MAN    COMES    TO    HIMSELF      61 

He  had  come  to  himself  —  to  the  full  realization  of  his 
powers,  the  true  and  clear  perception  of  what  it  was  his 
mind  demanded  for  its  satisfaction.  His  faculties  were 
consciously  stretched  to  their  right  measure,  were  at 
last  exercised  at  their  best.  He  felt  the  keen  zest,  not 
of  success  merely,  but  also  of  honor,  and  was  raised  to  a 
sort  of  majesty  among  his  fellow-men,  who  attended  him 
in  death  like  a  dead  sovereign.  He  had  died  dwarfed 
had  he  not  broken  the  bonds  of  mere  money-getting; 
would  never  have  known  himself  had  he  not  learned 
how  to  spend  it;  and  ambition  itself  could  not  have 
shown  him  a  straighter  road  to  fame. 

This  is  the  positive  side  of  a  man's  discovery  of  the 
way  in  which  his  faculties  are  to  be  made  to  fit  into  the 
world's  affairs  and  released  for  effort  in  a  way  that  will 
bring  real  satisfaction.  There  is  a  negative  side  also. 
Men  come  to  themselves  by  discovering  their  limitations 
no  less  than  by  discovering  their  deeper  endowments 
and  the  mastery  that  will  make  them  happy.  It  is  the 
discovery  of  what  they  can  not  do,  and  ought  not  to 
attempt,  that  transforms  reformers  into  statesmen;  and 
great  should  be  the  joy  of  the  world  over  every  reformer 
who  comes  to  himself.  The  spectacle  is  not  rare;  the 
method  is  not  hidden.  The  practicability  of  every  re 
form  is  determined  absolutely  and  always  by  "the  cir 
cumstances  of  the  case,"  and  only  those  who  put  them 
selves  into  the  midst  of  affairs,  either  by  action  or  by 
observation,  can  know  what  those  circumstances  are  or 
perceive  what  they  signify.  No  statesman  dreams  of 
doing  whatever  he  pleases;  he  knows  that  it  does  not 
follow  that  because  a  point  of  morals  or  of  policy  is 
obvious  to  him  it  will  be  obvious  to  the  nation,  or  even 
to  his  own  friends;  and  it  is  the  strength  of  a  democratic 
polity  that  there  are  so  many  minds  to  be  consulted  and 
brought  to  agreement,  and  that  nothing  can  be  wisely 


62  WOODROW   WILSON 

done  for  which  the  thought,  and  a  good  deal  more  than 
the  thought,  of  the  country,  its  sentiment  and  its 
purpose,  have  not  been  prepared.  Social  reform  is 
a  matter  of  cooperation,  and,  if  it  be  of  a  novel 
kind,  requires  an  infinite  deal  of  converting  to  bring 
the  efficient  majority  to  believe  in  it  and  support  it. 
Without  their  agreement  and  support  it  is  impossible. 

It  is  this  that  the  more  imaginative  and  impatient 
reformers  find  out  when  they  come  to  themselves,  if  that 
calming  change  ever  comes  to  them.  Oftentimes  the 
most  immediate  and  drastic  means  of  bringing  them  to 
themselves  is  to  elect  them  to  legislative  or  executive 
office.  That  will  reduce  over-sanguine  persons  to  their 
simplest  terms.  Not  because  they  find  their  fellow  legis 
lators  or  officials  incapable  of  high  purpose  or  indifferent 
to  the  betterment  of  the  communities  which  they  repre 
sent.  Only  cynics  hold  that  to  be  the  chief  reason  why 
we  approach  the  millennium  so  slowly,  and  cynics  are 
usually  very  ill-informed  persons.  Nor  is  it  because 
under  our  modern  democratic  arrangements  we  so  sub 
divide  power  and  balance  parts  in  government  that  no 
one  man  can  tell  for  much  or  turn  affairs  to  his  will. 
One  of  the  most  instructive  studies  a  politician  could 
undertake  would  be  a  study  of  the  infinite  limitations 
laid  upon  the  power  of  the  Russian  Czar,  notwithstanding 
the  despotic  theory  of  the  Russian  constitution  — 
limitations  of  social  habit,  of  official  prejudice,  of  race 
jealousies,  of  religious  predilections,  of  administrative 
machinery  even,  and  the  inconvenience  of  being  himself 
only  one  man,  and  that  a  very  young  one,  over-sensitive 
and  touched  with  melancholy.  He  can  do  only  what  can 
be  done  with  the  Russian  people.  He  can  no  more 
make  them  quick,  enlightened,  and  of  the  modern  world 
of  the  West  than  he  can  change  their  tastes  in  eating. 
He  is  simply  the  leader  of  Russians. 


WHEN   A   MAN   COMES   TO   HIMSELF     63 

An  English  or  American  statesman  is  better  off.  He 
leads  a  thinking  nation,  not  a  race  of  peasants  topped 
by  a  class  of  revolutionists  and  a  caste  of  nobles  and 
officials.  He  can  explain  new  things  to  men  able  to 
understand,  persuade  men  willing  and  accustomed  to 
make  independent  and  intelligent  choices  of  their  own. 
An  English  statesman  has  an  even  better  opportunity 
to  lead  than  an  Amercian  statesman,  because  in  England 
executive  power  and  legislative  initiative  are  both  in 
trusted  to  the  same  grand  committee,  the  ministry  of 
the  day.  The  ministers  both  propose  what  shall  be  made 
law  and  determine  how  it  shall  be  enforced  when  en 
acted.  And  yet  English  reformers,  like  American,  have 
found  office  a  veritable  cold-water  bath  for  their  ardor 
for  change.  Many  a  man  who  has  made  his  place  in 
affairs  as  the  spokesman  of  those  who  see  abuses  and 
demand  their  reformation  has  passed  from  denunciation 
to  calm  and  moderate  advice  when  he  got  into  Parlia 
ment,  and  has  turned  veritable  conservative  when  made 
a  minister  of  the  crown.  Mr.  Bright  was  a  notable 
example.  Slow  and  careful  men  had  looked  upon  him 
as  little  better  than  a  revolutionist  so  long  as  his  voice 
rang  free  and  imperious  from  the  platforms  of  public 
meetings.  They  greatly  feared  the  influence  he  should 
exercise  in  Parliament,  and  would  have  deemed  the  con 
stitution  itself  unsafe  could  they  have  foreseen  that  he 
would  some  day  be  invited  to  take  office  and  a  hand  of 
direction  in  affairs.  But  it  turned  out  that  there  was 
nothing  to  fear.  Mr.  Bright  lived  to  see  almost  every 
reform  he  had  urged  accepted  and  embodied  in  legisla 
tion;  but  he  assisted  at  the  process  of  their  realization 
with  greater  and  greater  temperateness  and  wise  delibera 
tion  as  his  part  in  affairs  became  more  and  more  promi 
nent  and  responsible,  and  was  at  the  last  as  little  like  an 
agitator  as  any  man  that  served  the  Queen. 


64  WOODROW   WILSON 

It  is  not  that  such  men  lose  courage  when  they  find 
themselves  charged  with  the  actual  direction  of  the 
affairs  concerning  which  they  have  held  and  uttered 
such  strong,  unhesitating,  drastic  opinions.  They  have 
only  learned  discretion.  For  the  first  time  they  see  in 
its  entirety  what  it  was  that  they  were  attempting. 
They  are  at  last  at  close  quarters  with  the  world.  Men 
of  every  interest  and  variety  crowd  about  them;  new  im 
pressions  throng  them;  in  the  midst  of  affairs  the  former 
special  objects  of  their  zeal  fall  into  new  environments, 
a  better  and  truer  perspective;  seem  no  longer  suscep 
tible  to  separate  and  radical  change.  The  real  nature 
of  the  complex  stuff  of  life  they  were  seeking  to  work 
in  is  revealed  to  them  —  its  intricate  and  delicate  fiber, 
and  the  subtle,  secret  interrelationship  of  its  parts  — 
and  they  work  circumspectly,  lest  they  should  mar  more 
than  they  mend.  Moral  enthusiasm  is  not,  uninstructed 
and  of  itself,  a  suitable  guide  to  practicable  and  lasting 
reformation;  and  if  the  reform  sought  be  the  reformation 
of  others  as  well  as  of  himself  the  reformer  should  look 
to  it  that  he  knows  the  true  relation  of  his  will  to  the 
wills  of  those  he  would  change  and  guide.  When  he  has 
discovered  that  relation  he  has  come  to  himself:  has 
discovered  his  real  use  and  planning  part  in  the  general 
world  of  men;  has  come  to  the  full  command  and  satis 
fying  employment  of  his  faculties.  Otherwise  he  is 
doomed  to  live  forever  in  a  fools'  paradise,  and  can  be 
said  to  have  come  to  himself  only  on  the  supposition 
that  he  is  a  fool. 

Every  man  —  if  I  may  adopt  and  paraphrase  a  passage 
from  Dr.  South  —  every  man  hath  both  an  absolute  and 
a  relative  capacity;  an  absolute  in  that  he  hath  been  en 
dued  with  such  a  nature  and  such  parts  and  faculties ;  and 
a  relative  in  that  he  is  part  of  the  universal  community  of 
men,  and  so  stands  in  such  a  relation  to  the  whole. 


WHEN  A  MAN  COMES  TO  HIMSELF       65 

When  we  say  that  a  man  has  come  to  himself,  it  is  not 
of  his  absolute  capacity  that  we  are  thinking,  but  of  his 
relative.  He  has  begun  to  realize  that  he  is  part  of  a 
whole,  and  to  know  what  part,  suitable  for  what  service 
and  achievement. 

It  was  once  fashionable  —  and  that  not  a  very  long 
time  ago  —  to  speak  of  political  society  with  a  certain 
distaste,  as  a  necessary  evil,  an  irritating  but  inevitable 
restriction  upon  the  "natural"  sovereignty  and  entire 
self-government  of  the  individual.  That  was  the  dream 
of  the  egotist.  It  was  a  theory  in  which  men  were 
seen  to  strut  in  the  proud  consciousness  of  their  several 
and  "absolute"  capacities.  It  would  be  as  instructive 
as  it  would  be  difficult  to  count  the  errors  it  has  bred  in 
political  thinking.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  men  have  never 
dreamed  of  wishing  to  do  without  the  "trammels"  of 
organized  society,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  those 
trammels  are  in  reality  no  trammels  at  all,  but  indis 
pensable  aids  and  spurs  to  the  attainment  of  the  highest 
and  most  enjoyable  things  man  is  capable  of.  Political 
society,  the  life  of  men  in  states,  is  an  abiding  natural 
relationship.  It  is  neither  a  mere  convenience  nor  a 
mere  necessity.  It  is  not  a  mere  voluntary  association, 
not  a  mere  corporation.  It  is  nothing  deliberate  or  arti 
ficial,  devised  for  a  special  purpose.  It  is  in  real  truth 
the  eternal  and  natural  expression  and  embodiment  of  a 
form  of  life  higher  than  that  of  the  individual  —  that 
common  life  of  mutual  helpfulness,  stimulation,  and  con 
test  which  gives  leave  and  opportunity  to  the  individual 
life,  makes  it  possible,  makes  it  full  and  complete. 

It  is  in  such  a  scene  that  man  looks  about  to  dis 
cover  his  own  place  and  force.  In  the  midst  of  men 
organized,  infinitely  cross- related,  bound  by  ties  of  in 
terest,  hope,  affection,  subject  to  authorities,  to  opinion, 
to  passion,  to  visions  and  desires  which  no  man  can 


66  WOODROW  WILSON 

reckon,  he  casts  eagerly  about  to  find  where  he  may  enter 
in  with  the  rest  and  be  a  man  among  his  fellows.  In 
making  his  place  he  finds,  if  he  seek  intelligently  and 
with  eyes  that  see,  more  than  ease  of  spirit  and  scope  for 
his  mind.  He  finds  himself  —  as  if  mists  had  cleared 
away  about  him  and  he  knew  at  last  his  neighborhood 
among  men  and  tasks. 

What  every  man  seeks  is  satisfaction.  He  deceives 
himself  so  long  as  he  imagines  it  to  lie  in  self-indulgence, 
so  long  as  he  deems  himself  the  center  and  object  of 
effort.  His  mind  is  spent  in  vain  upon  itself.  Not  in 
action  itself,  not  in  "pleasure,"  shall  it  find  its  desires 
satisfied,  but  in  consciousness  of  right,  of  powers  greatly 
and  nobly  spent.  It  comes  to  know  itself  in  the  motives 
which  satisfy  it,  in  the  zest  and  power  of  rectitude. 
Christianity  has  liberated  the  world,  not  as  a  system  of 
ethics,  not  as  a  philosophy  of  altrusion,  but  by  its  revela 
tion  of  the  power  of  pure  and  unselfish  love.  Its  vital 
principle  is  not  its  code,  but  its  motive.  Love,  clear 
sighted,  loyal,  personal,  is  its  breath  and  immortality. 
Christ  came,  not  to  save  himself,  assuredly,  but  to  save 
the  world.  His  motive,  his  example,  are  every  man's 
key  to  his  own  gifts  and  happiness.  The  ethical  code  he 
taught  may  no  doubt  be  matched,  here  a  piece  and  there 
a  piece,  out  of  other  religions,  other  teachings  and  phil 
osophies.  Every  thoughtful  man  born  with  a  conscience 
must  know  a  code  of  right  and  of  pity  to  which  he  ought 
to  conform ;  but  without  the  motive  of  Christianity,  with 
out  love,  he  may  be  the  purest  altruist  and  yet  be  as 
sad  and  as  unsatisfied  as  Marcus  Aurelius. 

Christianity  gave  us,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  the  per 
fect  image  of  right  living,  the  secret  of  social  and  of 
individual  well-being;  for  the  two  are  not  separable,  and 
the  man  who  receives  and  verifies  that  secret  in  his  own 
living  has  discovered  not  only  the  best  and  only  way  to 


WHEN  A  MAN  COMES   TO  HIMSELF       67 

serve  the  world,  but  also  the  one  happy  way  to  satisfy 
himself.  Then,  indeed,  has  he  come  to  himself.  Hence 
forth  he  knows  what  his  powers  mean,  what  spiritual  air 
they  breathe,  what  ardors  of  service  clear  them  of 
lethargy,  relieve  them  all  sense  of  effort,  put  them  at 
their  best.  After  this  fretfulness  passes  away,  experience 
mellows  and  strengthens  and  makes  more  fit,  and  old  age 
brings,  not  senility,  not  satiety,  not  regret,  but  higher 
hope  and  serene  maturity. 


EDUCATION  THROUGH  OCCUPATIONS1 

WILLIAM  LOWE  BRYAN 

Young  ladies  and  gentlemen,  your  chief  interest  at 
present,  as  I  suppose,  is  in  the  occupations  which  you 
are  about  to  follow.  What  I  have  to  say  falls  in  line 
with  that  interest. 

In  the  outset,  I  beg  to  remind  you  that  every  im 
portant  occupation  has  been  made  what  it  is  by  a 
guild  —  by  an  ancient  guild  whose  history  stretches  back 
in  direct  or  indirect  succession  to  the  farthest  antiquity. 
Every  such  historic  guild  of  artisans,  scholars,  lawyers, 
prophets,  what  not,  rose,  one  may  be  sure,  to  meet  some 
deep  social  necessity.  In  every  generation  those  neces 
sities  were  present  demanding  each  the  service  of  its 
share  of  the  population,  demanding  each  the  perpetuation 
of  its  guild.  And  because  in  the  historic  arts  and  crafts 
and  professions  mankind  has  spent  in  every  generation 
all  that  it  had  of  drudgery  or  of  genius,  it  has  won  in 
them  its  whole  estate.  The  steel  mill,  the  battleship, 
the  court  of  justice,  the  university  —  these  and  the  like 
of  them  are  not  accidents,  nor  miracles  of  individual 
invention,  nor  products  of  the  vague  longings  and  grop- 
ings  of  society  in  general.  They  are  each  the  product 
of  a  brotherhood,  of  generations  working  to  meet  one 
social  necessity,  of  an  apostolic  succession  of  masters 

XA  commencement  address,  reprinted  from  The  Spirit  of 
Indiana,  by  William  Lowe  Bryan.  Copyright,  1917,  by  the 
Indiana  University  Bookstore.  By  permission  of  the  author  and 
of  the  publishers. 

68 


EDUCATION   THROUGH   OCCUPATIONS    69 

living  in  the  service  of  one  ideal.  And  so  it  is  these 
brotherhoods  of  labor,  it  is  these  grim  brotherhoods 
covered  with  grime  and  scars,  that  stand  before  you 
to-day  inviting  you  to  initiation. 

The  fact  that  an  occupation  can  teach  its  far-brought 
wisdom  to  the  men  of  each  generation  makes  civilization 
and  progress  possible.  But  this  on  one  condition,  that 
many  of  the  people  and  some  of  the  best  of  them  shall 
be  able  to  make  that  occupation  their  life  business. 

The  law  is  not  in  a  country  when  you  have  imported 
Blackstone's  Commentaries  and  the  Statutes  of  Parlia 
ment.  The  law  is  in  a  country  in  the  persons  of  such 
lawyers  as  are  there.  It  is  there  in  John  Marshall. 

Religion  is  not  in  a  country  because  we  have  built  a 
church  and  furnished  it  with  cushions  to  sleep  on  once 
a  week.  It  is  there  in  Bishop  Brooks  and  Mr.  Moody 
and  the  Salvation  Army. 

The  steel  business  is  not  in  Pittsburgh  in  an  industrial 
museum  where  the  public  may  gad  about  on  holidays. 
It  is  there  in  the  men  who  earn  their  living  by  know 
ing  a  little  better  each  year  how  to  make  armor-plate. 

All  this  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  course.  But  there  are 
many  who  think  that  science  and  art  can  be  made  to 
serve  us  at  a  cheaper  price,  that  these  stern  guilds  will 
give  up  their  secret  treasures  in  extension  lectures  and 
chautauqua  clubs  and  twenty  minutes  a  week  in  the 
public  schools.  History  will  show,  I  think,  that  this 
is  not  true,  that  no  art  and  no  sort  of  learning  was  ever 
vitally  present  among  a  people  unless  it  was  there  as  a 
living  occupation. 

Learning  has  come  to  us  in  this  sense  only  within  the 
last  quarter-century.  We  were  busy  at  other  things  be 
fore  that.  Our  fathers  were  doing  —  as  every  people 
must  —  what  they  had  to  do.  They  had  to  live,  to 
establish  a  government,  and  to  maintain  their  funda- 


70  WILLIAM    LOWE    BRYAN 

mental  faiths.  They  bent  themselves  to  these  tasks 
with  the  energy  of  our  breed.  And  the  tasks  have 
shaped  our  national  history  and  character.  They  gave 
us  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  American 
farmer  who  takes  for  granted  that  its  principles  are  true. 
They  gave  us  Chicago,  the  Amazon  who  stands  yonder 
with  /  will  written  upon  her  shield  and  a  throng  of  men 
who  are  fit  to  serve  her  will.  They  gave  us  a  Civil 
War  —  men  who  could  fight  it  and  afterwards  live 
together  in  peace.  They  gave  us  industry,  law,  democ 
racy.  But  not  science,  not  art.  These  were  not  wholly 
absent,  but  they  were  guests.  They  were  here  in  the 
persons  of  a  few  men  who  in  spite  of  all  difficulties  did 
work  at  them  as  a  life  business. 

In  this  far  western  village,  for  example,  we  had  two 
men  who  brought  here  the  old  English  classical  learning, 
two  who  more  than  fifty  years  ago  had  been  trained 
in  the  universities  of  Europe,  and  one  whom  the  radical 
instinct  which  set  science  going  in  the  first  place,  called 
from  a  village  academy  into  membership  in  the  inter 
national  guild  of  scholars.  What  these  men  did  for 
sound  learning  and  what  they  did  through  their  pupils 
to  uplift  every  occupation  in  the  State,  it  is  wholly 
beyond  our  power  to  measure.  But  one  thing  they  could 
not  do.  They  could  not  furnish  to  society  more  men 
who  should  devote  themselves  to  learning  than  society 
would  furnish  a  living  for.  And  the  bare  fact  is  that 
there  was  a  living  for  very  few  such  men  in  America 
in  the  days  before  the  war.  Within  the  past  quarter- 
century  there  has  been  a  change  in  this  respect  so 
great  that  none  fails  to  see  it.  The  millions  that  we 
have  spent  upon  universities  and  high  schools,  the  vast 
plant  of  buildings  and  libraries  and  laboratories,  fill  the 
public  eye  with  amazement.  But  all  this  is  the  husk 
of  what  has  happened.  The  real  thing  is  that  these 


EDUCATION   THROUGH   OCCUPATIONS     71 

millions,  this  vast  plant,  these  thousands  of  positions 
demanding  trained  men,  have  brought  to  life  upon  this 
ground  the  guild  of  scholars.  We  do  not  need  any  more 
to  exhort  men  to  become  scholars.  The  spirit  which  was 
in  Thales  and  Copernicus,  in  Agassiz  and  Kirkwood, 
calls  to  the  Hoosier  farmboy  in  its  own  voice,  and  shows 
him  a  clear  path  by  which,  if  he  is  fit,  he  may  join  their 
great  company. 

And,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  Art,  which  has  also  been 
a  guest,  is  ready  at  last  to  become  a  citizen.  Why 
should  it  not?  What  is  lacking?  Yonder  are  the  works 
of  art  and  the  men  who  know.  Here  are  the  youths 
some  share  of  whom  must  by  right  belong  to  the  ser 
vice  of  Art.  And  here  are  the  millions  which  go  to 
support  men  in  every  molehole  of  scientific  research  and 
other  millions  spent  stupidly  and  wantonly  for  what 
ever  the  shopkeepers  tell  us  is  beautiful.  We  could 
not  create  these  potential  forces  that  make  for  art. 
But  if  it  is  true  that  they  are  here,  we  can  organize  them, 
as  David  Starr  Jordan  and  the  like  of  him  less  than 
twenty  years  ago  organized  the  forces  that  make  for 
science.  We  can  make  a  path  through  the  school  and 
the  university  along  which  all  the  children  of  the  State 
may  go  as  far  as  they  will  and  along  which  those  who 
are  fit  may  enter  the  a  list's  life. 

"The  mission  of  society,"  says  Geddes,  "is  to  bring 
to  bloom  as  many  sorts  of  genius  as  possible."  And  this 
it  can  do  only  when  each  sort  of  genius  has  the  chance 
to  choose  freely  its  own  life  occupation. 

Here,  as  I  think,  is  the  program  for  our  educational 
system  —  to  make  plain  highways  from  every  corner 
of  the  State  to  every  occupation  which  history  has 
proved  good. 


72  WILLIAM   LOWE   BRYAN 


II 

However,  as  matters  actually  stand  at  present,  it 
is  your  good  fortune  to  have  a  wide  range  of  occupations 
among  which  to  choose. 

It  is  no  light  matter  to  make  the  choice.  It  is  to 
elect  your  physical  and  social  environment.  It  is  to 
choose  where  you  will  work  —  in  a  scholar's  cloister, 
on  a  farm,  or  in  the  cliffs  of  a  city  street.  It  is  to 
choose  your  comrades  and  rivals.  It  is  to  choose  what 
you  will  attend  to,  what  you  will  try  for,  whom  you 
will  follow.  In  a  word,  it  is  to  elect  for  life,  for  better 
or  worse,  some  one  part  of  the  whole  social  heritage. 
These  influences  will  not  touch  you  lightly.  They  will 
compass  you  with  subtle  compulsions.  They  will  fashion 
your  clothes  and  looks  and  carriage,  the  cunning  of  your 
hands,  the  texture  of  your  speech,  and  the  temper  of 
your  will.  And  if  you  are  wholly  willing  and  wholly 
fit,  they  can  work  upon  you  this  miracle:  they  can 
carry  you  swiftly  in  the  course  of  your  single  life  to 
levels  of  wisdom  and  skill  in  one  sort,  which  it  has  cost 
the  whole  history  of  your  guild  to  win. 

But  there  is,  of  course,  no  magic  in  merely  choosing 
an  occupation.  If  you  do  nothing  to  an  occupation  but 
choose  it,  it  can  do  nothing  at  all  to  you.  If  you  are 
an  incorrigible  lover  of  holidays,  so  that  the  arrival  of 
a  working-day  makes  you  sick,  if  every  task  thrust  into 
your  hands  grows  intolerable,  if  every  calling,  as  soon  as 
you  have  touched  its  drudgery,  grows  hateful  —  that  is 
to  have  the  soul  of  a  tramp.  It  is  to  be  stricken  with 
incurable  poverty.  You  turn  your  back  upon  every 
company  of  men  where  anything  worth  while  is  to  be 
done.  You  shut  out  of  yourself  every  wisdom  and  skill 
which  civilized  work  develops  in  a  man.  And  you  grow 
not  empty  but  full,  choked  with  evil  life.  Wretched 


EDUCATION    THROUGH    OCCUPATIONS     73 

are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  nothing  good, 
for  they  also  shall  be  filled.  Herein  is  democracy,  that 
whether  you  are  a  beggar's  son  or  the  son  of  Croesus 
you  cannot  escape  from  yourself  —  you  cannot  bribe 
or  frighten  yourself  into  being  anything  else  than  what 
your  own  hungers  and  thirsts  have  made  you. 

It  is  somewhat  better  but  far  from  well  enough  if 
you  enter  many  occupations,  but  stay  in  none  long  enough 
to  receive  thorough  apprenticeship. 

It  is  so  ordered  that  it  is  easy  for  most  of  us  to  make 
a  fair  beginning  at  almost  anything.  In  the  rough  and 
tumble  of  babyhood  and  youth  we  all  accumulate  experi 
ences  which  are  raw  material  for  any  and  every  occupa 
tion.  So  when  one  of  them  kindles  in  you  a  light  blaze 
of  curiosity,  you  have  only  to  pull  yourself  together, 
you  have  only  to  mobilize  your  forces,  and  you  are 
presently  enjoying  little  successes  that  surprise  and  de 
light  you  and  that  may  give  you  the  illusion  of  mastery. 

Doubtless  the  World  Soul  knows  his  own  affairs  in 
ordering  this  so.  For  one  thing,  the  easy  initial  vic 
tories  are  fine  baits,  lures,  by  which  youths  are  caught 
and  drawn  into  serious  apprenticeship.  For  another 
thing,  the  influence  of  each  occupation  upon  society  in 
general  must  be  exercised  largely  through  men  who 
carry  some  intelligence  of  it  into  other  occupations. 

But  if  a  man  flits  from  one  curiosity  to  another, 
if  for  fear  of  being  narrow  and  with  the  hope  of  being 
broad,  he  forsakes  every  occupation  before  it  can  set 
its  seal  upon  him,  if  he  is  through  and  through  dilettante, 
jack-of-all-trades,  he  is  a  man  only  less  poverty-stricken 
than  a  tramp.  He  has  the  illusion  of  efficiency.  He 
wonders  that  society  generally  judges  that  he  is  not 
worth  his  salt,  that  on  every  battlefield  Hotspur  curses 
him  for  a  popinjay,  that  in  every  company  of  master 
workmen  met  for  council  he  is  at  most  a  tolerated  guest. 


74  WILLIAM    LOWE    BRYAN 

The  judgment  upon  him  —  not  my  judgment,  but  the 
judgment  which  the  days  thrust  in  his  face  —  is  this: 
that  when  there  is  important  work  to  be  done  he  cannot 
do  it.  He  is  full  of  versatility.  He  knows  the  alphabet 
of  everything  —  chemistry,  engineering,  business,  law, 
what  not.  But  with  all  these  he  cannot  bridge  the 
Mississippi.  He  cannot  make  the  steel  for  the  bridge, 
nor  calculate  the  strength  of  it,  nor  find  the  money  to 
build  it,  nor  defend  its  interests  in  court.  These  tasks 
fall  to  men  whom  twenty  years'  service  in  their  several 
callings  have  taught  to  speak  for  society  at  its  best. 
And  while  their  work  goes  on  its  way,  the  brilliant  man 
who  refused  every  sort  of  thorough  training  which 
society  could  give  him,  can  only  stand  full  of  wonder 
and  anger  that  with  all  his  versatilities  he  is  left  to 
choose  between  the  drudgery  of  unskilled  labor  and 
mere  starvation. 

There  is  another  sort  of  man  who  will  learn  little  in 
any  occupation  because  he  is  wholly  bent  upon  being 
original.  The  past  is  all  wrong,  full  of  errors,  absurdi 
ties,  iniquities.  To  serve  apprenticeship  is  to  indoc 
trinate  one's  self  with  pernicious  orthodoxies.  We  must 
rebel.  We  must  begin  at  the  beginning.  We  must  do 
something  entirely  new  and  revolutionary.  We  must 
rely  upon  our  free  souls  to  see  and  to  do  the  right,  as 
it  has  never  been  seen  or  done  before.  Some  such  decla 
ration  of  independence,  some  such  combination  of  hope 
less  pessimism  about  all  that  has  been  done,  with 
confident  optimism  about  what  is  just  to  be  done,  one 
finds  in  men  of  every  art,  craft,  and  calling.  We  are 
to  have  perpetual  motion.  We  are  to  square  the  circle. 
We  are  to  abandon  our  present  political  and  religious 
and  educational  institutions  and  get  new  and  perfect 
ones.  Above  all,  the  children  must  grow  up  free  from  the 
whole  array  of  social  orthodoxies.  We  are  to  escape 


EDUCATION  THROUGH  OCCUPATIONS  75 

from  the  whole  wretched  blundering  past  and  by  one 
bold  march  enter  a  new  Garden  of  Eden. 

There  is  something  inspiring  in  this,  something  that 
stirs  the  youth  like  a  bugle,  and  something,  as  I  believe, 
that  is  essential  in  every  generation  for  the  purification 
of  society.  The  past  is  as  bad  as  anybody  says  it  is, 
woven  full  of  inconsistency  and  iniquity.  We  must 
escape  it.  We  must  fight  it.  And  it  is  no  doubt  in 
evitable  that  there  should  be  some  who  think  that  they 
owe  it  nothing  but  war. 

And  yet,  for  my  part,  I  am  convinced  that  this  is  a 
fatally  one-sided  view  of  things.  Is  there  in  existence 
one  great  work  of  any  sort  which  owes  nothing  to  the 
historic  guild  which  does  that  sort  of  work?  Is  there 
one  great  man  in  history  who  gave  to  the  future  without 
getting  anything  from  the  past?  The  bare  scientific 
fact  is  that  no  man  escapes  the  tuition  of  society.  The 
crank  does  not  escape.  The  freak  does  not  escape. 
They  miss  the  highest  traditions  of  society  only  to 
become  victims  of  lower  traditions.  Whether  such  a 
man  have  genius  or  the  illusion  of  genius,  it  is  his 
tragic  fate  to  have  the  best  that  he  can  do  lie  far  below 
the  best  that  society  already  possesses. 

If  one  will  see  what  genius  without  adequate  instruc 
tion  comes  to,  let  him  look  at  the  case  of  the  mathe 
matical  prodigy,  Arthur  Griffith.  There  is  what  no  one 
would  refuse  to  call  genius.  There  is  originality,  spon 
taneity,  insatiable  interest,  unceasing  labor.  And  the 
result?  A  marvelous  skill  for  which  society  has  almost 
no  use,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  science  of  arithmetic 
which  is  two  hundred  years  behind  that  of  the  high 
school  graduate. 


76  WILLIAM    LOWE    BRYAN 

III 

But  now  that  we  have  told  off  these  three  classes 
who  will  not  learn  what  society  has  to  teach,  we  have 
happily  left  most  of  mankind;  certainly,  I  trust,  most 
of  you  who  have  submitted  to  the  instruction  of  society 
thus  far.  And  it  is  you  who  are  willing  to  work  and 
eager  for  the  best  instruction  that  society  can  give,  whom 
the  question  of  occupations  especially  concerns. 

And  here  I  beg  to  have  you  discriminate  between  the 
work  to  which  one  gives  his  attention  and  the  great 
swarm  of  activities  physical  and  mental  which  are  always 
going  on  in  the  background. 

A  boy  who  is  driving  nails  into  a  fence  has  for  the 
immediate  task  of  his  eyes  and  hands  the  hitting  of  a 
certain  nail  on  the  head.  Meanwhile,  the  rest  of  the 
boy's  body  and  soul  may  be  full  of  rebellion  and  longing 
to  be  done  with  the  fence  on  any  terms  and  away  at  the 
fishing.  Or  instead  of  that  the  whole  boy  may  be  full 
of  pride  in  what  he  has  done  and  of  resolution  to  drive 
the  last  nail  as  true  as  the  first.  Which  of  these  two 
things  is  the  more  important  —  the  task  in  the  fore 
ground  or  the  disposition  in  the  background  —  I  do  not 
know.  They  cannot  be  separated.  They  are  both 
present  in  every  waking  hour,  weaving  together  the 
threads  of  fate. 

A  man's  life  is  not  wholly  fortunate  unless  all  that 
is  within  him  rises  gladly  to  join  in  the  work  that  he 
has  to  do. 

It  is,  however,  unhappily  true  that  many  good  and 
useful  men  are  forced  by  circumstances  to  work  at  one 
thing,  while  their  hearts  are  tugging  to  be  at  something 
else.  They  have  not  chosen  their  tasks.  They  have 
been  driven  by  necessity.  There  must  be  bread.  There 
are  the  wife  and  the  children.  There  is  no  escape.  It  is 


EDUCATION   THROUGH   OCCUPATIONS    77 

up  with  the  sun.  It  is  bearing  the  burden  and  heat  of 
the  day.  It  is  intolerable  weariness.  It  is  worse  than 
that.  It  is  tramping  round  and  round  in  the  same 
hated  steps  until  you  cannot  do  anything  else.  You 
cannot  think  of  anything  else.  They  sound  in  your 
dreams  —  those  treadmill  steps  arousing  echoes  of 
bitterness  and  rebellion.  You  cannot  escape  from  your 
self.  You  cannot  take  a  vacation.  You  may  grow 
rich  and  travel  far  and  spend  desperately,  but  the 
baleful  music  will  follow  you  to  the  end,  the  music  of 
the  work  you  did  in  hate.  This  is  the  tragedy  of 
drudgery,  not  that  you  spend  your  time  and  strength  at 
it,  but  that  you  lose  yourself  in  it. 

But  at  the  worst  this  man  is  no  such  poverty-stricken 
soul  as  the  crank,  the  tramp,  or  the  jack-of-all-trades. 
If  his  occupation  was  worth  while,  those  hated  habits 
are  far  from  deserving  hate.  If  they  are  habits  by  which 
a  man  may  live,  by  which  one  may  give  a  service  that 
other  men  need  and  will  pay  for,  their  value  is  certified 
from  the  sternest  laboratory.  The  drudge  has  a  right 
to  respect  himself.  He  has  the  right  to  the  respect  of 
other  men  and  I  give  mine  without  reserve.  I  say  that 
he  who  holds  himself  grimly  for  life  to  a  useful  common 
place  work  which  he  hates,  is  heroic.  It  is  easy  to  be 
heroic  on  horseback.  To  be  heroic  on  foot  in  the  dust, 
lost  in  the  crowd,  with  no  applause  —  that  is  the  heroism 
which  has  borne  up  and  carried  forward  most  of  the 
work  of  civilization. 

IV 

We  honor  the  drudge,  but  deplore  his  fate.  And  yet 
there  are  many  who  believe  that  there  is  in  fact  no 
other  fate  for  any  man;  that  every  business  is  in  the 
long  run  a  belittling  business;  that  whether  you  are  a 
hodcarrier  or  a  poet,  as  you  go  on  in  your  calling, 


78  WILLIAM    LOWE    BRYAN 

"shades  of  the  prison-house"  will  close  upon  you  and 
custom  lie  upon  you  "heavy  as  frost  and  deep  almost  as 
life/' 

Let  us  look  at  this  deep  pessimism  at  its  darkest. 
The  imperfect,  that  is  everywhere.  That  is  all  that 
you  can  see  or  work  at.  That  is  the  warp  and  woof  of 
all  your  occupations  and  institutions,  your  politics,  your 
science,  your  religion.  They  are  all  nearly  as  bad  as 
they  are  good.  Your  science  has  forever  to  disown 
its  past.  Your  politics  demands  that  you  shall  be 
particeps  criminis  in  its  evil  as  the  price  of  a  position 
in  which  you  can  exert  any  influence.  Your  historic 
church  is  almost  as  full  of  Satan  as  of  Christ.  And  when 
you  have  spent  your  bit  of  life  in  any  of  these  institu 
tions  or  occupations,  they  are  not  perfect  as  you  had 
hoped. 

You  emancipate  the  slaves  and  the  negro  question 
still  looks  you  in  the  face.  You  invent  printing  and 
then  must  say  with  Browning's  Fust,  "Have  I  brought 
man  advantage  or  hatched  so  to  speak  a  strange  ser 
pent?" 

You  establish  a  new  brotherhood  for  the  love  of  Christ, 
and  presently  they  are  quarreling  which  shall  be  chief 
or  perhaps  haling  men  to  prison  in  the  name  of  Him 
who  came  to  let  the  oppressed  go  free. 

And  you,  yourself,  for  reward  will  be  filled  with  the 
Everlasting  Imperfect  which  your  eyes  have  seen  and 
your  hands  have  handled. 

The  essential  tragedy  of  life,  according  to  this  deep 
pessimism,  is  not  in  pain  and  defeat,  but  in  the  empti 
ness  and  vanity  of  all  that  we  call  victory. 

Then  I  looked  on  all  the  works  that  my  hands  had  wrought, 
and  on  the  labor  that  I  had  labored  to  do;  and,  behold,  all  was 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  and  there  was  no  profit  under 
the  sun. 


EDUCATION  THROUGH  OCCUPATIONS  79 


I  suppose  that  every  man's  faith  is  the  outgrowth  of 
his  disposition,  and  mine  makes  me  believe  that  the 
truth  embraces  all  the  blackest  of  this  pessimism  and 
also  the  victory  over  it.  I  admit  and  declare  that  our 
case  is  as  bad  as  anybody  has  found  it  to  be.  In  a 
generation  which  soothes  itself  with  the  assurance  that 
there  is  no  hell,  I  am  one  who  fears  that  its  fire  is  leap 
ing  through  every  artery  of  society. 

And  yet  I  have  never  a  doubt  that  there  is  a  spirit 
which  may  lead  a  man  through  any  calling  always  into 
more  of  the  life  and  freedom  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

For  one  thing,  it  is  necessary  that  your  calling  at  its 
best,  the  best  that  it  has  done,  the  best  that  it  may  do, 
should  lay  before  you  a  program  of  tasks,  the  first  of 
them  lying  definitely  before  you  and  within  your  power, 
the  others  stretching  away  into  all  that  a  man  can  do 
in  that  sort.  This  is  no  treadmill.  This  is  a  ladder, 
resting  on  the  ground,  stretching  toward  heaven. 

For  another  thing,  you  must  delight  in  your  work. 
Your  heart  and  body  must  be  in  it  and  not  tugging  to 
be  away  at  something  else.  You  do  not  then  deal  out 
to  each  bit  of  work  its  stingy  bit  of  your  attention. 
You  delight  in  the  thing.  You  hover  and  brood  over 
it  like  a  lover  and  lavish  upon  it  the  wealth  of  un 
counted  hours. 

The  sure  consequence  is  that  you  are  not  doing  the 
same  things  over  and  over  and  grooving  the  same  habits 
deeper  and  deeper.  Habits  cannot  stand  in  this  heat. 
They  fuse  and  flow  together.  They  are  no  longer 
chains.  They  are  wings.  They  lift  you  up  and  bear 
you  swiftly  and  joyfully  forward. 

This  is  indeed  the  life  of  joy.  You  have  the  joy  of 
efficiency.  You  have  the  joy  of  doing  the  best  you  had 


So  WILLIAM    LOWE    BRYAN 

hoped  to  do.  And  it  may  be  that  once  and  again  you 
will  be  set  shaking  with  delight  because  something  within 
you  has  turned  out  a  better  bit  of  work  than  you  had 
thought  possible. 

And  if,  besides  all  this,  the  background  of  feeling 
and  will  in  you  is  wholly  right;  if,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
you  have  learned  to  work  in  delicate  veracity,  stern 
against  yourself,  loyal  to  the  Perfection  whose  veils 
no  man  has  lifted;  if  the  far  vision  of  that  Perfection 
touches  you  with  humility,  mans  you  with  courage, 
and  makes  you  leap  glad  to  meet  the  tasks  which 
are  set  for  you,  —  what  is  this  but  entrance  here  and 
now  into  the  Kingdom  of  God? 

And  if  this  crowning  grace  comes  to  you,  as  it  may 
in  any  calling  —  it  came  to  Uncle  Tom  —  you  will  not, 
I  think,  believe  that  all  your  hands  have  wrought  is 
vanity.  You  will  not  believe  that  the  Logos  who  has 
called  our  race  out  of  the  earth  to  behold  and  share 
in  his  creation  is  a  dream,  a  mockery  of  our  despair, 
as  we  make  the  last  useless  turns  about  the  dying  sun. 
But  you  will  see  that  He  knew  the  truth  of  things  who 
said: 

My  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I  work.  The  works  that 
I  do  shall  ye  do  also  and  greater  works  than  these  shall  ye  do 
because  I  go  to  the  Father. 


THE  FALLOW * 
JOHN  AGRICOLA 

In  a  book  on  "Roman  Farm  Management"  containing 
translations  of  Cato  and  Varro  by  a  "Virginia  Farmer" 
(who  happens  also  to  be  an  American  railroad  president), 
there  is  quoted  in  the  original  Latin  a  proverb  whose 
practice  not  only  gave  basis  for  the  proud  phrase 
"Romanus  sum"  but  also  helped  to  make  the  Romans 
"  a  people  of  enduring  achievement."  It  is  "Romanus 
sedendo  vincit."  For,  as  this  new- world  farmer  adds 
by  way  of  translation  and  emphasis,  "The  Romans 
achieved  their  results  by  thoroughness  and  patience" 
"It  was  thus,"  he  continues,  "they  defeated  Hannibal, 
and  it  was  thus  that  they  built  their  farmhouses  and 
fences,  cultivated  their  fields,  their  vineyards  and  their 
olive  yards,  and  bred  and  fed  their  livestock.  They 
seemed  to  have  realized  that  there  are  no  shortcuts  in 
the  processes  of  nature  and  that  the  law  of  compensa 
tions  is  invariable."  "The  foundation  of  their  agricul 
ture,"  he  asserts,  "was  the  fallow" ;  and  concludes,  com 
menting  upon  this,  that  while  "one  can  find  instruction 
in  their  practice  even  to-day,  one  can  benefit  even  more 
from  their  agricultural  philosophy,  for  the  characteristic 
of  the  American  farmer  is  that  he  is  in  too  much  of  a 
hurry." 

This  is  only  by  way  of  preface  to  saying  that  the 
need  in  our  educational  philosophy,  or,  at  any  rate,  in 

1  By  permission  of  the  author,  John  Finley. 
81 


82  JOHN   AGRICOLA 

our  educational  practice,  as  in  agriculture,  is  the 
need  of  the  fallow. 

It  will  be  known  to  philologists,  even  to  those  who 
have  no  agricultural  knowledge,  that  the  "fallow  field" 
is  not  an  idle  field,  though  that  is  the  popular  notion. 
"Fallow"  as  a  noun  meant  originally  a  "harrow,"  and  as  a 
verb,  "to  plough,"  "to  harrow."  "A  fallow  field  is  a  field 
ploughed  and  tilled,"  but  left  unsown  for  a  time  as  to  the 
main  crop  of  its  productivity;  or,  in  better  modern  prac 
tice,  I  believe,  sown  to  a  crop  valuable  not  for  what  it  will 
bring  in  the  market  (for  it  may  be  utterly  unsalable), 
but  for  what  it  will  give  to  the  soil  in  enriching  it  for 
its  higher  and  longer  productivity. 

I  employ  this  agricultural  metaphor  not  in  ignorance; 
for  I  have,  out  on  these  very  prairies,  read  between  corn- 
husking  and  the  spring  ploughing  Virgil's  Georgics  and 
Bucolics,  for  which  Varro's  treatises  furnished  the  founda 
tions.  And  I  have  also,  on  these  same  prairies,  carried 
Horace's  Odes,  in  the  spring,  to  the  field  with  me, 
strapping  the  book  to  the  plough  to  read  while  the  horses 
rested  at  the  furrow's  end. 

Nor  do  I  employ  this  metaphor  demeaningly.  Nothing 
has  so  glorified  for  me  my  youthful  days  on  these  prairies 
as  the  associations  which  the  classics,  including  the  Bible, 
gave  to  them  on  the  farm;  and  also  in  the  shop,  I  may 
add,  for  it  was  in  the  shop,  as  well  as  on  the  farm,  that 
I  had  their  companionship.  When  learning  the  printer's 
trade,  while  a  college  student,  I  set  up  in  small  pica  my 
translation  of  the  daily  allotment  of  the  Prometheus 
Bound  of  Aeschylus,  and  that  dark  and  dingy  old  shop 
became  the  world  of  the  Titan  who  "manward  sent 
Art's  mighty  means  and  perfect  rudiment,"  the  place 
where  the  divine  in  man  "defied  the  invincible  gesture  of 
necessity."  And  nothing  can  so  glorify  the  classics  as 
to  bring  them  into  the  field  and  into  the  shop  and  let 


THE    FALLOW  83 

them  become  woven  into  the  tasks  that  might  else  seem 
monotonous  or  menial. 

In  a  recent  editorial  in  the  New  York  Times  it  was  said 
that  the  men  and  the  times  of  Aristophanes  were  much 
more  modern  than  the  administration  of  Rutherford 
B.  Hayes.  But  this  was  simply  because  Aristophanes 
immortally  portrayed  the  undying  things  in  human  na 
ture,  whereas  the  issues  associated  with  this  particular 
administration  were  evanescent.  The  immortal  is,  of 
course,  always  modern,  and  the  classic  is  the  immortal, 
the  timeless  distillation  of  human  experience. 

But  I  wander  from  my  thesis  which  is  that  the  classics 
are  needed  as  the  fallow  to  give  lasting  and  increasing 
fertility  to  the  natural  mind  out  upon  democracy's  great 
levels,  into  which  so  much  has  been  washed  down  and 
laid  down  from  the  Olympic  mountains  and  eternal  hills 
of  the  classical  world. 

In  the  war  days  we  naturally  ignored  the  fallow.  We 
cultivated  with  Hooverian  haste.  It  was  necessary  to 
put  our  soil  in  peril  of  exhaustion  even  as  we  put  our 
men  in  peril  of  death.  Forty  million  added  acres  were 
commandeered,  six  billions  of  bushels  of  the  leading 
cereals  were  added  to  the  annual  product  of  earlier  sea 
sons.  The  land  could  be  let  to  think  only  of  immediate 
defense.  Crops  only  could  be  grown  which  would  help 
promptly  to  win  the  war.  Vetch  and  clover  and  all  else 
that  permanently  enriched  must  be  given  up  for  war 
gardening  or  war  farming.  The  motto  was  not  Ameri- 
canus  sedendo  vincit  but  Americanus  accelerando  vincit. 

But  on  this  day  of  my  writing  (the  day  of  the  signing 
of  the  peace)  I  am  thinking  that  in  agriculture  and  in 
education  as  well,  we  must  again  turn  our  thoughts  to 
the  virtues  of  thoroughness  and  patience  —  the  virtues 
of  the  fallow,  that  is,  to  ploughing  and  harrowing  and 
tilling,  not  for  the  immediate  crop,  but  for  the  enrich- 


84  JOHN   AGRICOLA 

ment  of  the  soil  and  of  the  mind,  according  as  our 
thought  is  of  agriculture  or  education. 

Cato,  when  asked  what  the  first  principle  of  good  agri 
culture  was,  answered  "To  plough  well."  When  asked 
what  the  second  was,  replied  "To  plough  again."  And 
when  asked  what  the  third  was,  said  "To  apply  ferti 
lizer."  And  a  later  Latin  writer  speaks  of  the  farmer 
who  does  not  plough  thoroughly  as  one  who  becomes  a 
mere  "clodhopper."  You  will  notice  that  it  is  not  sow 
ing,  nor  hoeing  after  the  sowing,  but  ploughing  that  is 
the  basic  operation. 

It  is  the  sowing,  however,  that  is  popularly  put  first 
in  our  agricultural  and  educational  theory.  "A  sower 
went  forth  to  sow."  A  teacher  went  forth  to  teach, 
that  is,  to  scatter  information,  facts:  — arithmetical,  his 
torical,  geographical,  linguistic  facts.  But  the  emphasis 
of  the  greatest  agricultural  parable  in  our  literature  was 
after  all  not  on  the  sowing  but  on  the  soil,  on  that  upon 
which  or  into  which  the  seed  fell,  —  or  as  it  might  be 
better  expressed,  upon  the  fallow.  It  was  only  the  fal 
low  ground,  the  ground  that  had  been  properly  cleared 
of  stones,  thorns,  and  other  shallowing  or  choking  en 
cumbrances,  that  gave  point  to  the  parable.  It  was  the 
same  seed  that  fell  upon  the  stony,  thorny,  and  fallow 
ground  alike. 

There  is  a  time  to  sow,  to  sow  the  seed  for  the  special 
crop  you  want;  but  it  is  after  you  have  ploughed  the 
field.  There  is  a  time  to  specialize,  to  give  the  informa 
tion  which  the  life  is  to  produce  in  kind;  but  it  is  when 
you  have  thoroughly  prepared  the  mind  by  its  ploughing 
disciplines. 

I  have  lately  seen  the  type  of  agriculture  practised  out 
in  the  fields  that  were  the  Scriptural  cradle  of  the  race. 
There  the  ploughing  is  but  the  scratching  of  the  surface. 
Indeed,  the  sowing  is  on  the  top  of  the  ground  and  the 


THE    FALLOW  85 

so-called  ploughing  or  scratching  in  with  a  crooked  stick 
comes  after.  Contrast  this  with  the  deep  ploughing  of 
the  West,  and  we  have  one  explanation  at  least  of  the 
greater  productivity  of  the  West.  And  there  is  the  edu 
cational  analogue  here  as  well.  In  those  homelands  of 
the  race,  the  seed  of  the  mind  is  sown  on  the  surface  and 
is  scratched  in  by  oral  and  choral  repetitions.  The  mind 
that  receives  it  is  not  ploughed,  is  not  trained  to  think. 
It  merely  receives  and  with  shallow  root,  if  it  be  not 
scorched,  gives  back  its  meager  crop. 

There  must  be  ploughing  before  the  sowing,  and  deep 
ploughing  if  things  with  root  are  to  find  abundant  life 
and  fruit.  And  the  classics  to  my  thought  furnish  the 
best  ploughs  for  the  mind,  —  at  any  rate  for  minds  that 
have  depth  of  soil.  For  shallow  minds,  "where  there  is 
not  much  depth  of  earth,"  where,  because  there  cannot 
be  much  root,  that  which  springs  up  withers  away,  it 
were  perhaps  not  worth  while  to  risk  this  precious  imple 
ment.  And  then,  too,  there  are  geniuses  whose  fertility 
needs  not  the  same  stirring  disciplines.  There  are  also 
other  ploughs,  but  as  a  ploughman  I  have  found  none 
better  for  English  use  than  the  plough  which  has  the 
classical  name,  the  plough  which  reaches  the  sub-soil, 
which  supplements  the  furrowing  ploughs  in  bringing  to 
the  culture  of  our  youthful  minds  that  which  lies  deep  in 
the  experience  of  the  race. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  fallow  as  I  have  already 
intimated.  The  more  modern  is  not  the  "bare  fallow" 
which  lets  the  land  so  ploughed  and  harrowed  lie  unsown 
even  for  a  season,  but  the  fallow,  of  varied  name,  where 
the  land  is  sown  to  crops  whose  purpose  is  to  gather  the 
free  nitrogen  back  into  the  ground  for  its  enrichment. 
So  is  our  fallowing  by  the  classics  not  only  to  prepare 
the  ground,  clear  it  of  weeds,  aerate  it,  break  up  the 
clods,  but  also  to  enrich  it  by  bringing  back  into  the 


86  JOHN   AGRICOLA 

mind  of  the  youth  of  to-day  that  which  has  escaped 
into  the  air  of  the  ages  past  through  the  great  human 
minds  that  have  lived  and  loved  upon  this  earth  and  laid 
themselves  down  into  its  dust  to  die. 

In  New  York  City,  a  young  man,  born  out  upon  the 
prairies,  was  lying,  as  it  was  thought,  near  to  death,  in 
a  hospital.  He  turned  to  the  nurse  and  asked  what 
month  it  was.  She  answered  that  it  was  early  May. 
He  thought  of  the  prairies,  glorified  to  him  by  Horace's 
Odes.  He  heard  the  frogs  in  the  swales  amid  the  virgin 
prairie  flowers  as  Aristophanes  had  heard  them  in  the 
ponds  of  Greece.  He  saw  the  springing  oats  in  a  neigh 
boring  field  that  should  furnish  the  pipes  for  the  winds 
of  Pan.  He  saw,  as  the  dying  poet  Ibycus,  the  cranes 
go  honking  overhead.  And  he  said,  "I  can't  die  now. 
It's  ploughing  time." 


It  is  "ploughing  time"  for  the  world  again,  and  plough 
ing  time  not  only  because  we  turn  from  instruments  of 
war  to  those  of  peace,  symbolized  since  the  days  of 
Isaiah  by  the  "ploughshares"  beaten  from  swords,  but 
because  we  must  turn  to  the  cultivation  with  thorough 
ness  and  patience  not  only  of  our  acres  but  of  the  minds 
that  are  alike  to  have  world  horizons  in  this  new  season 
of  the  earth. 

Amos  prophesied  that  in  the  day  of  restoration  "the 
ploughman  would  overtake  the  reaper."  War's  grim 
reaper  is  quitting  the  field  to-day.  The  ploughman  has 
overtaken  him.  May  he  remember  the  law  of  the  "fal 
low"  and  not  be  in  too  great  a  hurry. 


WRITING  AND  READING1 
JOHN  MATTHEWS  MANLY  AND  EDITH  RICKERT 

Do  you  like  to  write?  Probably  not.  What  have  you 
tried  to  write?  Probably  "themes." 

The  "theme"  is  a  literary  form  invented  by  teachers  of 
rhetoric  for  the  education  of  students  in  the  art  of  writ 
ing.  It  does  not  exist  outside  the  world  of  school  and 
college.  No  editor  ever  accepted  a  "theme."  No  "theme" 
was  ever  delivered  from  a  rostrum,  or  spoken  at  a  dinner, 
or  bound  between  the  covers  of  a  book  in  the  hope  that 
it  might  live  for  centuries.  In  a  word,  a  "theme"  is 
first  and  last  a  product  of  "composition"  —  a  laborious 
putting  together  of  ideas,  without  audience  and  without 
purpose,  hated  alike  by  student  and  by  instructor.  Its 
sole  use  is  to  exemplify  the  principles  of  rhetoric.  But 
rhetoric  belongs  to  the  past  as  much  as  the  toga  and 
the  snuffbox;  it  is  an  extinct  art,  the  art  of  cultivating 
style  according  to  the  mannerisms  of  a  vanished  age. 

Forget  that  you  ever  wrote  a  "theme,"  and  ask  your 
self  now:  "Should  I  like  to  write?"  Of  course  you 
would  —  if  you  could.  And  you  can.  You  have  had, 
and  you  will  have,  some  experiences  that  will  not  be 
repeated  exactly  in  any  other  life  —  that  no  one  else 
can  express  exactly  as  you  would  express  them.  And  the 
art  of  expressing  what  you  have  experienced,  what  you 

1  From  The  Writing  of  English,  by  John  Matthews  Manly  and 
Edith  Rickert.  Copyright,  1919,  by  Henry  Holt  and  Co.  By 
permission  of  the  authors  and  of  the  publishers. 

87 


88  JOHN  M.   MANLY  AND  EDITH  RICKERT 

think,  what  you  feel,  and  what  you  believe,  can  be 
learned. 

If  you  stop  to  consider  the  matter,  you  will  realize 
that  self-expression  is  one  of  the  laws  of  life;  you  do 
express  yourself  day  after  day,  whether  you  will  or  not. 
Hence,  the  more  quickly  you  learn  that  successful  self- 
expression  is  the  source  of  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures 
in  life,  the  more  readily  will  you  be  able  to  turn  your 
energy  in  the  right  direction,  and  the  more  fun  will  you 
get  out  of  the  process.  The  kind  of  delight  that  comes 
through  self-expression  of  the  body,  through  the  play 
of  the  muscles  in  running  or  hurdling,  through  the  play 
of  muscles  and  mind  together  in  football  or  baseball  or 
tennis  or  golf,  comes  also  through  the  exercise  of  the 
mind  alone  in  talk  or  in  writing. 

Remember  always  throughout  this  course,  that  you 
have  something  to  say  —  something  peculiar  to  yourself 
that  should  be  contributed  to  the  sum  of  the  world's 
experience,  something  that  cannot  be  contributed  by 
anyone  but  yourself.  It  may  be  much  or  it  may  be  little: 
with  that  you  are  not  concerned  at  present;  your  busi 
ness  now  is  to  find  out  how  to  say  it ;  how  to  clear  away 
the  obstacles  that  clog  self-expression;  how  to  give  your 
mind  free  swing;  and  how  to  get  all  the  fun  there  is  in 
the  process. 

The  initial  problems  in  learning  to  write  are:  How  can 
you  get  at  this  store  of  material  hidden  within  you? 
and  how  can  you  know  when  you  have  found  it?  Your 
experience,  however  interesting,  is  as  yet  very  limited. 
How  can  you  tell  which  phases  of  it  deserve  expression, 
and  which  are  mere  commonplace?  The  quickest  way 
to  answer  this  question  is  by  reading.  Reading  will  tell 
you  which  phases  of  experience  have  been  commonly 
treated  and  which  have  been  neglected.  Moreover,  as 
you  read  you  will  be  surprised  to  find  that  very  often 


WRITING   AND    READING  89 

the  features  of  your  life  which  seem  to  you  peculiarly 
interesting  are  exactly  those  that  are  commonly  —  and 
even  cheaply  —  written  about,  while  those  which  you 
have  passed  over  as  not  worth  attention  may  be  aspects  of 
life  that  other  people  too  have  passed  over;  they  may 
therefore  be  fresh  and  well  worth  writing  about.  For 
instance,  within  the  last  twenty-five  years  we  have  had 
two  writers,  Joseph  Conrad  and  John  Masefield,  writing 
of  the  sea  as  it  has  never  been  written  of  before.  Both 
have  been  sailors;  and  both  have  utilized  their  experience 
as  viewed  through  the  medium  of  their  temperaments  in 
a  way  undreamed  of  before.  Again,  within  the  last 
ten  years  we  have  had  Algernon  Blackwood,  using  his 
imagination  to  apply  psychology  to  the  study  of  the 
supernatural,  and  so  developing  a  field  peculiar  to  him 
self.  Still  again,  H.  G.  Wells,  who  began  his  career  as 
a  clerk  and  continued  as  a  teacher  of  science,  has  found 
in  both  these  phases  of  his  experience  a  mine  of  literary 
wealth;  and  Arnold  Bennett,  born  and  educated  in  the 
dreariest,  most  unpicturesque,  apparently  least  inspiring, 
part  of  England,  has  seen  in  the  very  prosiness  of  the 
Five  Towns  untouched  material,  and  has  given  this  an 
enduring  place  in  literature.  In  your  imagination  there 
may  lie  the  basis  of  fantasies  as  yet  unexpressed;  or  in 
your  experience,  aspects  of  life  that  have  not  as  yef 
been  adequately  treated.  As  you  read  you  will  find 
that  until  recently  the  one  phase  of  life  most  exploited 
in  literature  was  the  romantic  love  of  youth;  this  was 
the  basis  of  nearly  all  novels  and  of  most  short  stories; 
its  presence  was  demanded  for  either  primary  or  second 
ary  interest  in  the  drama;  and  it  was  the  chief  source  of 
inspiration  for  the  lyric.  But  within  the  last  thirty 
years  all  sorts  of  other  subjects  have  been  opened  up. 
To-day  the  writer's  difficulty  is,  not  that  he  is  restricted 
by  literary  convention  in  his  choice  of  material,  but 


go  JOHN  M.  MANLY  AND  EDITH  RICKERT 

that  he  is  so  absolutely  unrestricted  that  he  may  be  in 
doubt  where  to  make  his  choice.  He  is,  to  be  sure, 
conditioned  in  two  ways:  To  do  the  best  work,  he 
must  keep  within  the  bounds  of  his  own  temperament 
and  experience;  and  he  should  as  far  as  possible  avoid 
phases  of  life  already  written  about,  unless  he  can  present 
them  under  some  new  aspect. 

With  these  conditions  in  mind,  you  are  ready  to  ask 
yourself:  What  have  I  to  write  about?  Let  us  put 
the  question  more  concretely:  Have  you  lived,  for  in 
stance,  in  a  little  mining  town  in  the  West?  Such  a 
little  town,  with  its  saloons  and  automatics  and  flannel- 
shirted  hero,  stares  at  us  every  month  from  the  pages  of 
popular  magazines.  But  perhaps  your  little  mining  town 
is  dry,  perhaps  there  has  not  been  a  shooting  fray  in  it 
for  ten  years,  and  all  the  young  men  go  to  Bible  class 
on  Sunday.  Well,  here  is  something  new;  let  us  have  it. 
Is  New  York  your  home?  The  magazines  tell  you 
that  New  York  is  parceled  out  among  a  score  of  writers: 
the  Italian  quarter,  the  Jewish  quarter,  the  Syrian  quar 
ter,  the  boarding-houses,  Wall  Street.  What  is  there 
left?  The  suburbs?  Surely  not;  and  yet  have  you  ever 
seen  a  story  of  just  your  kind  of  street  and  just  the 
kind  of  people  that  you  know?  If  not,  here  is  your 
opportunity. 

You  have  read  about  sailors,  fishermen,  farmers,  de 
tectives,  Italian  fruit-peddlers,  Jewish  clothes-merchants, 
commercial  travelers,  financiers,  salesmen  and  sales 
women,  doctors,  clergymen,  heiresses,  and  men  about 
town,  but  have  you  often  read  a  thrilling  romance  of 
a  filing  clerk?  How  about  the  heroism  of  a  telephone 
collector?  the  humors  of  a  street-car  conductor?  The 
seeing  eye  will  find  material  in  the  street  car,  in  the 
department  store,  in  the  dentist's  waiting  room,  in 
college  halls,  on  a  lonely  country  road  —  anywhere  and 


WRITING   AND    READING  91 

everywhere.  And  the  seeing  eye  is  cultivated  by  a  per 
petual  process  of  comparing  life  as  it  is  with  life  as  it 
is  portrayed  in  literature  and  in  art.  In  other  words, 
to  get  material  to  write  about,  you  must  cultivate  alert 
ness  to  the  nature  and  value  of  your  own  life-experience, 
and  to  the  nature  and  value  of  all  forms  of  life  with 
which  you  come  into  contact;  but  this  you  can  never 
do  with  any  degree  of  success  unless  you  at  the  same 
time  learn  how  to  read. 

You  may  say  that  you  know  how  to  read.  It  is  almost 
certain  that  you  do  not.  If  by  reading  you  mean  that 
you  can  run  your  eye  over  a  page,  and,  barring  a  word 
here  and  there,  get  the  general  drift  of  the  sense,  you 
may  perhaps  qualify  as  able  to  read.  If  you  are  set 
the  task  of  interpreting  fully  every  phrase  in  an  article 
by  a  thoughtful  writer,  the  chances  are  that  you  will 
fail.  When  only  a  small  part  of  a  writer's  meaning  has 
passed  from  his  mind  to  yours,  you  can  hardly  be  said 
to  have  read  what  he  has  written.  On  the  other  hand, 
no  one  can  get  out  of  written  words  all  that  was  put 
into  them.  What  was  written  out  of  one  man's  experi 
ence  must  be  interpreted  by  another's  experience;  and 
as  no  two  people  ever  have  exactly  the  same  experience  — 
no  two  people  are  exactly  alike  —  it  follows  that  no 
interpretation  is  ever  entirely  what  the  writer  had  in 
mind.  The  ratio  between  what  goes  into  a  book  and 
what  comes  out  of  it  varies  in  two  ways.  Granted  the 
same  reader,  he  will  take  only  to  the  limit  of  his  capac 
ity  from  any  book  set  before  him:  he  may  get  almost 
all  from  a  book  that  contains  but  little,  a  good  share 
of  a  book  that  contains  much,  but  very  little  of  a  book 
that  is  far  beyond  the  range  of  his  experience.  Granted 
the  same  book,  one  reader  will  barely  skim  its  surface, 
another  will  gain  a  fair  idea  of  the  gist  of  it,  a  third 
will  almost  relieve  it  with  the  author. 


92  JOHN  M.   MANLY  AND   EDITH  RICKERT 

The  main  point  is  that  this  varying  ratio  depends  upon 
the  amount  of  life-experience  that  goes  into  the  writing 
of  a  book  and  the  amount  of  life-experience  that  goes 
into  the  reading  of  it.  For  as  writing  is  the  expression 
of  life,  so  reading  is  vicarious  living  —  living  by  proxy, 
reliving  in  imagination  what  the  author  has  lived  before 
he  was  able  to  write  it.  Hence,  we  grow  up  to  books, 
grow  into  them,  grow  out  of  them.  Our  growing  experi 
ence  of  life  may  be  measured  by  the  books  that  we  read ; 
and  conversely,  as  we  cannot  have  all  experience  in  our 
own  lives,  books  are  necessarily  one  of  the  most  fruitful 
sources  of  growth  in  experience. 

This  is  true,  however,  only  of  what  may  be  called 
vitalized  reading  —  reading,  not  with  the  eyes  alone,  nor 
with  the  mind  alone,  but  with  the  stored  experiences  of 
life,  with  the  emotions  that  it  has  brought,  with  the  atti 
tudes  toward  men  and  things  and  ideas  that  it  has  given  — 
in  a  word,  with  imagination.  To  read  with  imagination, 
you  must  be,  in  the  first  place,  active ;  in  the  second  place, 
sensitive,  and,  because  you  are  sensitive,  receptive.  In 
stead,  however,  of  being  merely  passively  receptive  of 
the  stream  of  ideas  and  images  and  sensations  flowing 
from  the  work  you  are  reading,  you  must  be  alert  to 
take  all  that  it  has  to  give,  and  to  re-create  this  in 
terms  of  your  own  experience.  Thus  by  making  it  a 
part  of  your  imaginative  experience,  you  widen  your 
actual  experience,  you  enrich  your  life,  and  you  increase 
the  flexibility  and  vital  power  of  your  mind. 

In  order,  then,  to  tap  the  sources  of  your  imagination, 
you  must  learn  to  experience  in  two  ways:  first,  through 
life  itself,  not  so  much  by  seeking  experiences  different 
from  those  that  naturally  come  your  way,  as  by  becom 
ing  aware  of  the  value  of  those  that  belong  naturally  to 
your  life;  and  second,  through  learning  to  absorb  and 
transmute  the  life  that  is  in  books,  beginning  with  those 


WRITING   AND    READING  93 

that  stand  nearest  to  your  stage  of  development.  In 
the  process  of  reading  you  will  turn  more  and  more  to 
those  writers  who  have  a  larger  mastery  of  life,  and  who, 
by  their  skill  in  expressing  the  wisdom  and  beauty  that 
they  have  made  their  own,  can  admit  you,  when  you  are 
ready,  to  some  share  in  that  mastery. 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL1 
BLISS  PERRY 

Two  Harvard  men,  teachers  of  English  in  the  Uni 
versity  of  North  Carolina,  have  recently  published  a  new 
kind  of  textbook  for  undergraduates.  Abandoning  the 
conventional  survey  of  literary  types  and  the  examination 
of  literary  history  in  the  narrow  sense  of  those  words, 
they  present  a  program  of  ideas,  the  dominant  ideas  of 
successive  epochs  in  the  life  of  England  and  America. 
They  direct  the  attention  of  the  young  student,  not  so 
much  to  canons  of  art  as  to  noteworthy  expressions  of 
communal  thought  and  feeling,  to  the  problems  of  self- 
government,  of  noble  discipline,  of  ordered  liberty.  The 
title  of  this  book  is  The  Great  Tradition.  The  funda 
mental  idealism  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  illustrated 
by  passages  from  Bacon  and  Raleigh,  Spenser  and 
Shakespeare.  But  William  Bradford,  as  well  as  Crom 
well  and  Milton,  is  chosen  to  represent  the  seventeenth- 
century  struggle  for  faith  and  freedom.  In  the  eigh 
teenth  century,  Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Thomas 
Paine  appear  side  by  side  with  Burke  and  Burns  and 
Wordsworth.  Shelley  and  Byron,  Tennyson  and  Car- 
lyle  are  here  of  course,  but  with  them  are  John  Stuart 
Mill  and  John  Bright  and  John  Morley.  There  are 

*An  address  delivered  at  the  exercises  held  by  the  Cambridge 
Historical  Society  in  Sanders  Theatre,  Harvard  University,  Feb. 
22,  1919,  to  commemorate  the  centenary  of  Lowell's  birth.  By 
permission  of  Professor  Perry  and  of  the  editor  of  the  Harvard 
Graduates'  Magazine.  Copyright,  1919,  by  The  Harvard  Gradu 
ates'  Magazine. 

94 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  95 

passages  from  Webster  and  Emerson,  from  Lowell  and 
Walt  Whitman  and  Lincoln,  and  finally,  from  the  elo 
quent  lips  of  living  men  —  from  Lloyd  George  and  Arthur 
Balfour  and  Viscount  Grey  and  President  Wilson  — 
there  are  pleas  for  international  honor  and  international 
justice  and  for  a  commonwealth  of  free  nations. 

It  is  a  magnificent  story,  this  record  of  Anglo-Saxon 
idealism  during  four  hundred  years.  The  six  or  seven 
hundred  pages  of  the  book  which  I  have  mentioned  are 
indeed  rich  in  purely  literary  material ;  in  the  illustration 
of  the  temper  of  historic  periods;  in  the  exhibition  of 
changes  in  language  and  in  literary  forms.  The  lover 
of  sheer  beauty  in  words,  the  analyzer  of  literary  types, 
the  student  of  biography,  find  here  ample  material  for 
their  special  investigations.  But  the  stress  is  laid,  not 
so  much  upon  the  quality  of  individual  genius,  as  upon 
the  political  and  moral  instincts  of  the  English-speaking 
races,  their  long  fight  for  liberty  and  democracy,  their 
endeavor  to  establish  the  terms  upon  which  men  may 
live  together  in  society.  And  precisely  here,  I  take  it, 
is  the  significance  of  the  pages  which  Professors  Green- 
law  and  Hanford  assign  to  James  Russell  Lowell.  The 
man  whom  we  commemorate  to-night  played  his  part 
in  the  evolution  which  has  transformed  the  Elizabethan 
Englishman  into  the  twentieth-century  American. 
Lowell  was  an  inheritor  and  an  enricher  of  the  Great 
Tradition. 

This  does  not  mean  that  he  did  not  know  whether  he 
was  American  or  English.  He  wrote  in  1866  of  certain 
Englishmen:  "They  seem  to  forget  that  more  than  half 
the  people  of  the  North  have  roots,  as  I  have,  that 
run  down  more  than  two  hundred  years  deep  into  this 
new-world  soil  —  that  we  have  not  a  thought  nor  a  hope 
that  is  not  American."  In  1876,  when  his  political 
independence  made  him  the  target  of  criticism,  he  re- 


96  BLISS   PERRY 

plied  indignantly:  "These  fellows  have  no  notion  what 
love  of  country  means.  It  is  in  my  very  blood  and 
bones.  If  I  am  not  an  American,  who  ever  was?" 

It  remains  true,  nevertheless,  that  Lowell's  life  and  his 
best  writing  are  keyed  to  that  instinct  of  personal  dis 
cipline  and  civic  responsibility  which  characterized  the 
seventeenth  century  emigrants  from  England.  These 
successors  of  Roger  Ascham  and  Thomas  Elyot  and 
Philip  Sidney  were  Puritanic,  moralistic,  practical;  and 
with  their  "faith  in  God,  faith  in  man  and  faith  in 
work"  they  built  an  empire.  Lowell's  own  mind,  like 
Franklin's,  like  Lincoln's,  had  a  shrewd  sense  of  what 
concerns  the  common  interests  of  all.  The  inscription 
beneath  his  bust  on  the  exterior  of  Massachusetts  Hall 
runs  as  follows:  "Patriot,  scholar,  orator,  poet,  public 
servant."  Those  words  begin  and  end  upon  that  civic 
note  which  is  heard  in  all  of  Lowell's  greater  utterances. 
It  has  been  the  dominant  note  of  much  of  the  American 
writing  that  has  endured.  And  it  is  by  virtue  of  this 
note,  touched  so  passionately,  so  nobly,  throughout 
a  long  life,  that  Lowell  belongs  to  the  elect  company 
of  public  souls. 

No  doubt  we  have  had  in  this  country  distinguished 
practitioners  of  literature  who  have  stood  mainly  or 
wholly  outside  the  line  of  the  Great  Tradition.  They 
drew  their  inspiration  elsewhere.  Poe,  for  example,  is 
not  of  the  company;  Hawthorne  in  his  lonelier  moods  is 
scarcely  of  the  company.  In  purely  literary  fame,  these 
names  may  be  held  to  outrank  the  name  of  James  Russell 
Lowell;  as  Emerson  outranks  him,  of  course,  in  range  of 
vision,  Longfellow  in  craftsmanship,  and  Walt  Whitman 
in  sheer  power  of  emotion  and  of  phrase.  But  it  happens 
that  Lowell  stands  with  both  Emerson  and  Whitman  in 
the  very  centre  of  that  group  of  poets  and  prose-men 
who  have  been  inspired  by  the  American  idea.  They 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  97 

were  all,  as  we  say  proudly  nowadays,  "in  the  service," 
and  the  particular  rank  they  may  have  chanced  to  win 
is  a  relatively  insignificant  question,  except  to  critics 
and  historians. 

The  centenary  of  the  birth  of  a  writer  who  reached 
three  score  and  ten  is  usually  ill-timed  for  a  proper  per 
spective  of  his  work.  A  generation  has  elapsed  since 
his  death.  Fashions  have  changed;  writers,  like  bits 
of  old  furniture,  have  had  time  to  "go  out"  and  not  time 
enough  to  come  in  again.  George  Eliot  and  Ruskin,  for 
instance,  whose  centenaries  fall  in  this  year,  suffer  the 
dark  reproach  of  having  been  "Victorians."  The  cen 
tenaries  of  Hawthorne  and  Longfellow  and  Whittier  were 
celebrated  at  a  period  of  comparative  indifference  to 
their  significance.  But  if  the  present  moment  is  still 
too  near  to  Lowell's  life-time  to  afford  a  desirable  literary 
perspective,  a  moral  touchstone  of  his  worth  is  close  at 
hand.  In  this  hour  of  heightened  national  conscious 
ness,  when  we  are  all  absorbed  with  the  part  which  the 
English-speaking  races  are  playing  in  the  service  of  the 
world,  we  may  surely  ask  whether  Lowell's  mind  kept 
faith  with  his  blood  and  with  his  citizenship,  or  whether, 
like  many  a  creator  of  exotic,  hybrid  beauty,  he  remained 
an  alien  in  the  spiritual  commonwealth,  a  homeless,  mas- 
terless  man. 

No  one  needs  to  speak  in  Cambridge  of  Lowell's  de 
votion  to  the  community  in  which  he  was  born  and  in 
which  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  die.  In  some  of  his 
most  delightful  pages  he  has  recorded  his  affection  for 
it.  Yonder  in  the  alcoves  of  Harvard  Hall,  then  the 
College  Library,  he  discovered  many  an  author  unrepre 
sented  among  his  father's  books  at  Elmwood.  In  Uni 
versity  Hall  he  attended  chapel  —  occasionally.  In  the 
open  space  between  Hollis  and  Holden  he  read  his  "Com 
memoration  Ode."  He  wrote  to  President  Hill  in  1863: 


98  BLISS   PERRY 

" Something  ought  to  be  done  about  the  trees  in  the 
Yard."  He  loved  the  place.  It  was  here  in  Sanders 
Theatre  that  he  pronounced  his  memorable  address  at 
the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  founding 
of  the  College  —  an  address  rich  in  historic  background, 
and  not  without  solicitude  for  the  future  of  his  favorite 
humanistic  studies  —  a  solicitude,  some  will  think,  only 
too  well  justified.  "Cambridge  at  all  times  is  full  of 
ghosts,"  said  Emerson.  But  no  ghost  from  the  past, 
flitting  along  the  Old  Road  from  Elmwood  to  the  Yard, 
and  haunting  the  bleak  lecture-rooms  where  it  had  re 
cited  as  a  careless  boy  and  taught  wearily  as  a  man, 
could  wear  a  more  quizzical  and  friendly  aspect  than 
Lowell's.  He  commonly  spoke  of  his  life  as  a  professor 
with  whimsical  disparagement,  as  Henry  Adams  wrote  of 
his  own  teaching  with  a  somewhat  cynical  disparagement. 
But  the  fact  is  that  both  of  these  self-depreciating  New 
Englanders  were  stimulating  and  valuable  teachers. 
From  his  happily  idle  boyhood  to  the  close  of  his  fruit 
ful  career,  Lowell's  loyalty  to  Cambridge  and  Harvard 
was  unalterable.  Other  tastes  changed  after  wider  ex 
perience  with  the  world.  He  even  preferred,  at  last, 
the  English  blackbird  to  the  American  bobolink,  but  the 
Harvard  Quinquennial  Catalogue  never  lost  its  savor, 
and  in  the  full  tide  of  his  social  success  in  London  he 
still  thought  that  the  society  he  had  enjoyed  at  the 
Saturday  Club  was  the  best  society  in  the  world.  To 
deracinate  Lowell  was  impossible,  and  it  was  for  this 
very  reason  that  he  became  so  serviceable  an  interna 
tional  personage.  You  knew  where  he  stood.  It  was 
not  for  nothing  that  his  roots  ran  down  two  hundred 
years  deep.  He  was  the  incarnation  of  his  native  soil. 
Lowell  has  recently  been  described,  together  with 
Whittier,  Emerson,  and  others,  as  an  "English  provincal 
poet  —  in  the  sense  that  America  still  was  a  literary  prov- 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  99 

ince  of  the  mother  country."  To  this  amazing  state 
ment  one  can  only  rejoin  that  if  "The  Biglow  Papers," 
the  "Harvard  Commemoration  Ode,"  "Under  the  Old 
Elm,"  the  "Fourth  of  July  Ode,"  and  the  Agassiz  elegy 
are  English  provincial  poetry,  most  of  us  need  a  new 
map  and  a  new  vocabulary.  Of  both  series  of  "Biglow 
Papers"  we  may  surely  exclaim,  as  did  Quintilian  con 
cerning  early  Roman  satire,  "This  is  wholly  ours."  It 
is  true  that  Lowell,  like  every  young  poet  of  his  genera 
tion,  had  steeped  himself  in  Spenser  and  the  other 
Elizabethans.  They  were  his  literary  ancestors  by  as 
indisputable  an  inheritance  as  a  Masefield  or  a  Kipling 
could  claim.  He  had  been  brought  up  to  revere  Pope. 
Then  he  surrendered  to  Wordsworth  and  Keats  and 
Shelley,  and  his  earlier  verses,  like  the  early  work  of 
Tennyson,  are  full  of  echoes  of  other  men's  music.  It 
is  also  true  that  in  spite  of  his  cleverness  in  versifying, 
or  perhaps  because  of  it,  he  usually  showed  little  inven 
tiveness  in  shaping  new  poetic  patterns.  His  tastes  were 
conservative.  He  lacked  that  restless  technical  curiosity 
which  spurred  Poe  and  Whitman  to  experiment  with 
new  forms.  But  Lowell  revealed  early  extraordinary 
gifts  of  improvisation,  retaining  the  old  tunes  of  English 
verse  as  the  basis  for  his  own  strains  of  unpremediated 
art.  He  wrote  "A  Fable  for  Critics"  faster  than  he  could 
have  written  it  in  prose.  "Sir  Launfal"  was  composed  in 
two  days,  the  "Commemoration  Ode"  in  one. 

It  was  this  facile,  copious,  enthusiastic  poet,  not  yet 
thirty,  who  grew  hot  over  the  Mexican  War  and  poured 
forth  his  indignation  in  an  unforgettable  political  satire 
such  as  no  English  provincal  poet  could  possibly  have 
written.  What  a  weapon  he  had,  and  how  it  flashed  in 
his  hand,  gleaming  with  wit  and  humor  and  irony,  edged 
with  scorn,  and  weighted  with  two  hundred  years  of 
Puritan  tradition  concerning  right  and  wrong!  For  that. 


ioo  BLISS    PERRY 

after  all,  was  the  secret  of  its  success.  Great  satire  must 
have  a  standard;  and  Lowell  revealed  his  in  the  very  first 
number  and  in  one  line: 

"  'T  aint  your  eppylets  an'  feathers 
Make  the  thing  a  grain  more  right." 

Some  readers  to-day  dislike  the  Yankee  dialect  of  these 
verses.  Some  think  Lowell  struck  too  hard;  but  they 
forget  Grant's  characterization  of  the  Mexican  War 
as  "one  of  the  most  unjust  ever  waged  by  a  stronger 
against  a  weaker  nation."  There  are  critics  who  think 
the  First  Series  of  "Biglow  Papers"  too  sectional;  an  ex 
hibition  of  New  England's  ancient  tendency  towards 
nullification  of  the  national  will.  No  doubt  Lowell 
underestimated  the  real  strength  of  the  advocates  of 
national  expansion  at  any  cost.  Parson  Wilbur  thought, 
you  remember,  that 

"All  this  big  talk  of  our  destinies 
Is  half  on  it  ign'ance  an'  t'other  half  rum." 

Neither  ignorance  nor  rum  was  responsible  for  the  in 
vasion  of  Belgium;  but  at  least  one  can  say  that  the 
political  philosophy  which  justifies  forcible  annexation  of 
territory  is  taught  to-day  in  fewer  universities  than  were 
teaching  it  up  to  1914.  Poets  are  apt  to  have  the  last 
word,  even  in  politics. 

The  war  with  Mexico  was  only  an  episode  in  the  ex 
pansion  of  the  slave  power;  the  fundamental  test  of 
American  institutions  came  in  the  War  for  the  Union. 
Here  again  Lowell  touched  the  heart  of  the  great  issue. 
The  Second  Series  of  "Biglow  Papers"  is  more  uneven 
than  the  First.  There  is  less  humor  and  more  of  whimsi 
cality.  But  the  dialogue  between  "the  Moniment  and  the 
Bridge,"  "Jonathan  to  John,"  and  above  all,  the  tenth 
number,  "Mr.  Hosea  Biglow  to  the  Editor  of  the  Atlantic 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  101 

Monthly,"  show  the  full  sweep  .of  Lowell's  power.  Here 
are  pride  of  country,  passion  of  personal  sorrow,  tender 
ness,  idyllic  beauty,  magic  of  word  and  phrase. 

Never  again,  save  in  passages  of  the  memorial  odes 
written  after  the  War,  was  Lowell  more  completely  the 
poet.  For  it  is  well  known  that  his  was  a  divided  nature, 
so  variously  endowed  that  complete  integration  was  diffi 
cult,  and  that  the  circumstances  of  his  career  prevented 
that  steady  concentration  of  powers  which  poetry  de 
mands.  She  is  proverbially  the  most  jealous  of  mis 
tresses,  and  Lowell  could  not  render  a  constant  allegiance. 
At  thirty  his  friends  thought  of  him,  rightly  enough,  as 
primarily  a  poet:  but  in  the  next  fifteen  years  he  had 
become  a  professor,  had  devoted  long  periods  to  study 
in  Europe,  had  published  prose  essays,  had  turned  editor, 
first  of  the  Atlantic,  then  of  the  North  American  Review, 
and  was  writing  political  articles  that  guided  public 
opinion  in  the  North.  To  use  a  phrase  then  beginning 
to  come  into  general  use,  he  was  now  a  "man  of  letters." 
But  during  the  Civil  War,  I  believe  he  thought  of  himself 
as  simply  a  citizen  of  the  Union.  His  general  reputa 
tion,  won  in  many  fields,  gave  weight  to  what  he  wrote 
as  a  publicist.  His  editorials  were  one  more  evidence 
of  the  central  pull  of  the  Great  Tradition;  it  steadied  his 
judgment,  clarified  his  vision,  kept  his  rudder  true. 

Lowell's  political  papers  during  this  period,  although 
now  little  read,  have  been  praised  by  Mr.  James  Ford 
Rhodes  as  an  exact  estimate  of  public  sentiment,  as  voic 
ing  in  energetic  diction  the  mass  of  the  common  people 
of  the  North.  Lincoln  wrote  to  thank  him  for  one  of 
them,  adding,  "I  fear  I  am  not  quite  worthy  of  all  which 
is  therein  kindly  said  of  me  personally."  Luckily  Lin 
coln  never  saw  an  earlier  letter  in  which  Lowell  thought 
that  "an  ounce  of  Fremont  is  worth  a  pound  of  long 
Abraham."  The  fact  is  that  Lowell,  like  most  men  of 


102  BLISS    PERRY 

the  u  Brahmin  caste,"  came  slowly  to  a  recognition  of 
Lincoln's  true  quality.  Motley,  watching  events  from 
Vienna,  had  a  better  perspective  than  Boston  then 
afforded.  Even  Mr.  Norton,  Lowell's  dear  friend  and 
associate  upon  the  North  American  Review,  thought  in 
1862  that  the  President  was  timid,  vacillating,  and  secre 
tive,  and,  what  now  seems  a  queerer  judgment  still,  that 
he  wrote  very  poor  English.  But  if  the  editors  of  the 
North  American  showed  a  typical  Anglo-Saxon  reluctance 
in  yielding  to  the  spell  of  a  new  political  leadership, 
Lowell  made  full  amends  for  it  in  that  superb  Lincoln 
strophe  now  inserted  in  the  "Commemoration  Ode," 
afterthought  though  it  was,  and  not  read  at  the  celebra 
tion. 

In  this  poem  and  in  the  various  Centennial  Odes 
composed  ten  years  later,  Lowell  found  an  instrument 
exactly  suited  to  his  temperament  and  his  technique. 
Loose  in  structure,  copious  in  diction,  swarming  with 
imagery,  these  Odes  gave  ample  scope  for  Lowell's  swift 
gush  of  patriotic  fervor,  for  the  afflatus  of  the  im- 
proviser,  steadied  by  reverence  for  America's  historic 
past.  To  a  generation  beginning  to  lose  its  taste  for 
commemorative  oratory,  the  Odes  gave  —  and  still  give 
—  the  thrill  of  patriotic  eloquence  which  Everett  and 
Webster  had  communicated  in  the  memorial  epoch  of 
1826.  The  forms  change,  the  function  never  dies. 

The  dozen  years  following  the  Civil  War  were  also 
the  period  of  Lowell's  greatest  productiveness  in  prose. 
Tethered  as  he  was  to  the  duties  of  his  professorship, 
and  growling  humorously  over  them,  he  managed  never 
theless  to  put  together  volume  after  volume  of  essays  that 
added  greatly  to  his  reputation,  both  here  and  in  Eng 
land.  For  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  honorary 
degrees  of  D.  C.  L.  from  Oxford  and  LL.D.  from  Cam 
bridge  were  bestowed  upon  Lowell  in  1873  and  1874; 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  103 

long  before  any  one  had  thought  of  him  as  Minister 
to  England,  and  only  a  little  more  than  ten  years  after 
he  had  printed  his  indignant  lines  about 

"The  old  J.  B. 
A-crowdin'  you  and  me." 

J.  B.  seemed  to  like  them!  A  part  of  Lowell's  full 
harvest  of  prose  sprang  from  that  habit  of  enormous 
reading  which  he  had  indulged  since  boyhood.  He  liked 
to  think  of  himself  as  "one  of  the  last  of  the  great 
readers";  and  though  he  was  not  that,  of  course,  there 
was  neverthless  something  of  the  seventeenth  century 
tradition  in  his  gluttony  of  books.  The  very  sight  and 
touch  and  smell  of  them  were  one  of  his  pieties.  He 
had  written  from  Elmwood  in  1861:  "I  am  back  again 
in  the  place  I  love  best.  I  am  sitting  in  my  old  garret, 
at  my  old  desk,  smoking  my  old  pipe  and  loving  my  old 
friends."  That  is  the  way  book-lovers  still  picture 
Lowell  — the  Lowell  of  the  "Letters"  —  and  though  it 
is  only  a  half-length  portrait  of  him,  it  is  not  a  false 
one.  He  drew  upon  his  ripe  stock  of  reading  for  his 
college  lectures,  and  from  the  lectures,  in  turn,  came 
many  of  the  essays.  Wide  as  the  reading  was  in  vari 
ous  languages,  it  was  mainly  in  the  field  of  "belles- 
lettres."  Lowell  had  little  or  no  interest  in  science  or 
philosophy.  Upon  one  side  of  his  complex  nature  he  was 
simply  a  book-man  like  Charles  Lamb,  and  like  Lamb 
he  was  tempted  to  think  that  books  about  subjects  that 
did  not  interest  him  were  not  really  books  at  all. 

Recent  critics  have  seemed  somewhat  disturbed  over 
Lowell's  scholarship.  He  once  said  of  Longfellow:  "Mr. 
Longfellow  is  not  a  scholar  in  the  German  sense  of  the 
word  —  that  is  to  say,  he  is  no  pedant,  but  he  certainly 
is  a  scholar  in  another  and  perhaps  a  higher  sense.  I 
mean  in  range  of  acquirement  and  the  flavor  that  comes 


104  BLISS    PERRY 

with  it."  Those  words  might  have  been  written  of  him 
self.  It  is  sixty-five  years  since  Lowell  was  appointed 
to  his  professorship  at  Harvard,  and  during  this  long 
period  erudition  has  not  been  idle  here.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  the  University  possesses  to-day  a  better 
Dante  scholar  than  Lowell,  a  better  scholar  in  Old 
French,  a  better  Chaucer  scholar,  a  better  Shakespeare 
scholar.  But  it  is  certain  that  if  our  Division  of 
Modern  Languages  were  called  upon  to  produce  a  volume 
of  essays  matching  in  human  interest  one  of  Lowell's 
volumes  drawn  from  these  various  fields,  we  should  be 
obliged,  first,  to  organize  a  syndicate,  and,  second,  to 
accept  defeat  with  as  good  grace  as  possible. 

Contemporary  critics  have  also  betrayed  a  certain 
concern  for  some  aspects  of  Lowell's  criticism.  Is  it 
always  penetrating,  they  ask?  Did  he  think  his  critical 
problems  through?  Did  he  have  a  body  of  doctrine,  a 
general  thesis  to  maintain?  Did  he  always  keep  to  the 
business  in  hand?  Candor  compels  the  admission  that 
he  often  had  no  theses  to  maintain:  he  invented  them  as 
he  went  along.  Sometimes  he  was  a  mere  guesser,  not 
a  clairvoyant.  We  have  had  only  one  Coleridge. 
Lowell's  essay  on  Wordsworth  is  not  as  illuminating  as 
Walter  Pater's.  The  essay  on  Gray  is  not  as  well 
ordered  as  Arnold's.  The  essay  on  Thoreau  is  quite  as 
unsatisfactory  as  Stevenson's.  It  is  true  that  the  famous 
longer  essays  on  Dante,  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakespeare, 
Dryden,  Milton,  are  full  of  irrelevant  matter,  of  facile 
delightful  talk  which  often  leads  nowhere  in  particular. 
It  is  true,  finally,  that  a  deeper  interest  in  philosophy 
and  science  might  have  made  Lowell's  criticism  more 
fruitful;  that  he  blazed  no  new  paths  in  critical  method; 
that  he  overlooked  many  of  the  significant  literary  move 
ments  of  his  own  time  in  his  own  country. 

But  when  one  has  said  all  this,  even  as  brilliantly  as 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  105 

Mr.  Brownell  has  phrased  it,  one  has  failed  to  answer 
the  pertinent  question:  "Why,  in  spite  of  these  de 
fects,  were  LowelPs  essays  read  with  such  pleasure  by 
so  many  intelligent  persons  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
and  why  are  they  read  still?"  The  answer  is  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  tradition  of  the  English  bookish  essay, 
from  the  first  appearance  of  Florio's  translation  of  Mon 
taigne  down  to  the  present  hour.  That  tradition  has 
always  welcomed  copious,  well-informed,  enthusiastic, 
disorderly,  and  affectionate  talk  about  books.  It  de 
mands  gusto  rather  than  strict  method,  discursiveness 
rather  than  concision,  abundance  of  matter  rather  than 
mere  neatness  of  design.  "Here  is  God's  plenty!"  cried 
Dryden  in  his  old  age,  as  he  opened  once  more  his 
beloved  Chaucer;  and  in  Lowell's  essays  there  is  surely 
"God's  plenty"  for  a  book-lover.  Every  one  praises 
"My  Garden  Acquaintance,"  "A  Good  Word  for  Winter," 
"On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners"  as  perfect 
types  of  the  English  familiar  essay.  But  all  of  Lowell's 
essays  are  discursive  and  familiar.  They  are  to  be 
measured,  not  by  the  standards  of  modern  French  criti 
cism —  which  is  admittedly  more  deft,  more  delicate, 
more  logical  than  ours  —  but  by  the  unchartered  free 
dom  which  the  English-speaking  races  have  desired  in 
their  conversations  about  old  authors  for  three  hundred 
years.  After  all, 

"There  are  nine-and-sixty  ways  of  constructing  tribal  lays 
And  every  single  one  of  them  is  right." 

Lowell,  like  the  rest  of  us,  is  to  be  tested  by  what  he 
had,  not  by  what  he  lacked. 

His  reputation  as  a  talker  about  books  and  men  was 
greatly  enhanced  by  the  addresses  delivered  during  his 
service  as  Minister  to  England.  Henry  James  once  de 
scribed  Lowell's  career  in  London  as  a  tribute  to  the 


io6  BLISS    PERRY 

dominion  of  style.  It  was  even  more  a  triumph  of 
character,  but  the  style  of  these  addresses  is  undeniable. 
Upon  countless  public  occasions  the  American  Minister 
was  called  upon  to  say  the  fitting  word;  and  he  deserves 
the  quaint  praise  which  Thomas  Benton  bestowed  upon 
Chief  Justice  Marshall,  as  "a  gentleman  of  finished 
breeding,  of  winning  and  prepossessing  talk,  and  just 
as  much  mind  as  the  occasion  required  him  to  show." 
I  cannot  think  that  Lowell  spoke  any  better  when  un 
veiling  a  bust  in  Westminster  Abbey  than  he  did  at  the 
Academy  dinners  in  Ashfield,  Massachusetts,  where  he 
had  Mr.  Curtis  and  Mr.  Norton  to  set  the  pace;  he  was 
always  adequate,  always  witty  and  wise;  and  some  of 
the  addresses  in  England,  notably  the  one  on  "Democ 
racy"  given  in  Birmingham  in  1884,  may  fairly  be 
called  epoch-making  in  their  good  fortune  of  explaining 
America  to  Europe.  Lowell  had  his  annoyances  like 
all  ambassadors;  there  were  dull  dinners  as  well  as 
pleasant  ones,  there  were  professional  Irishmen  to  be 
placated,  solemn  despatches  to  be  sent  to  Washington. 
Yet,  like  Mr.  Phelps  and  Mr.  Bayard  and  Mr.  Choate 
and  the  lamented  Walter  Page  in  later  years,  this  gentle 
man,  untrained  in  professional  diplomacy,  accomplished 
an  enduring  work.  Without  a  trace  of  the  conven 
tional  "hand  across  the  sea"  banality,  without  either 
subservience  or  jingoism,  he  helped  teach  the  two  na 
tions  mutual  respect  and  confidence,  and  thirty  years 
later,  when  England  and  America  essayed  a  common  task 
in  safeguarding  civilization,  that  old  anchor  held. 

This  cumulative  quality  of  Lowell's  achievement  is 
impressive,  as  one  reviews  his  career.  His  most  thought 
ful,  though  not  his  most  eloquent  verse,  his  richest  vein 
of  letter-writing,  his  most  influential  addresses  to  the 
public,  came  toward  the  close  of  his  life.  Precocious 
as  was  his  gift  for  expression,  and  versatile  and  bril- 


JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL  107 

lant  as  had  been  his  productiveness  in  the  1848  era,  he 
was  true  to  his  Anglo-Saxon  stock  in  being  more  effective 
at  seventy  than  he  had  been  at  thirty.  He  was  one 
of  the  men  who  die  learning  and  who  therefore  are 
scarcely  thought  of  as  dying  at  all.  I  am  not  sure 
that  we  may  not  say  of  him  to-day,  as  Thoreau  said  of 
John  Brown,  "He  is  more  alive  than  ever  he  was."  Cer 
tainly  the  type  of  Americanism  which  Lowell  repre 
sented  has  grown  steadily  more  interesting  to  the  Euro 
pean  world,  and  has  revealed  itself  increasingly  as  a 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  world  of  the 
future.  Always  responsive  to  his  environment,  always 
ready  to  advance,  he  faced  the  new  political  issues  at 
the  close  of  the  century  with  the  same  courage  and  sagac 
ity  that  had  marked  his  conduct  in  the  eighteen-forties. 
You  remember  his  answer  to  Guizot's  question:  "How 
long  do  you  think  the  American  Republic  will  endure?" 
"So  long,"  replied  Lowell,  "as  the  ideas  of  its  founders 
continue  to  be  dominant";  and  he  added  that  by  "ideas" 
he  meant  "the  traditions  of  their  race  in  government  and 
morals."  Yet  the  conservatism  revealed  in  this  reply 
was  blended  with  audacity  —  the  inherited  audacity  of 
the  pioneer.  No  line  of  Lowell's  has  been  more  often 
quoted  in  this  hall  than  the  line  about  the  futility  of 
attempting  to  open  the  "Future's  portal  with  the  Past's 
blood-rusted  key."  Those  words  were  written  in  1844. 
And  here,  in  a  sentence  written  forty-two  years  afterward, 
is  a  description  of  organized  human  society  which  voices 
the  precise  hope  of  forward-looking  minds  in  Europe  and 
America  at  this  very  hour:  "The  basis  of  all  society  is 
the  putting  of  the  force  of  all  at  the  disposal  of  all, 
by  means  of  some  arrangement  assented  to  by  all,  for 
the  protection  of  all,  and  this  under  certain  prescribed 
forms."  Like  Jefferson,  like  Lincoln,  like  Theodore 
Roosevelt  at  his  noblest,  Lowell  dared  to  use  the  word 
"all." 


io8  BLISS   PERRY 

Such  men  are  not  forgotten.  As  long  as  June  days 
come  and  the  bobolink's  song  "runs  down,  a  brook  of 
laughter,  through  the  air";  as  long  as  a  few  scholars  are 
content  to  sit  in  the  old  garret  with  the  old  books,  and 
close  the  books,  at  times,  to  think  of  old  friends;  as  long 
as  the  memory  of  brave  boys  makes  the  "eyes  cloud  up 
for  rain";  as  long  as  Americans  still  cry  in  their  hearts 
"O  beautiful,  my  country!"  the  name  of  James  Russell 
Lowell  will  be  remembered  as  the  inheritor  and  enricher 
of  a  great  tradition. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 1 
CARL  BECKER 

In  1771,  Thomas  Hutchinson  wrote  to  one  of  his 
friends,  "We  have  not  been  so  quiet  here  these  five  years 
.  .  .  if  it  were  not  for  two  or  three  Adamses,  we  should 
do  well  enough."  From  that  day  to  this  many  people 
have  agreed  with  the  fastidious  governor.  But  so  far, 
an  Adams  or  two  we  have  always  had  with  us;  and  on 
the  whole,  although  they  have  sometimes  been  exasperat 
ing,  they  have  always  been  salutary.  During  four 
generations  the  men  of  this  family  have  loved  and 
served  America  as  much  as  they  have  scolded  her.  More 
cannot  be  said,  except  that  they  have  commonly  given, 
on  both  counts,  more  than  they  have  received.  Theirs 
is  therefore  the  blessing,  and  ours  the  benefit. 

Among  other  things,  we  have  to  thank  them  for  some 
diaries  and  autobiographies  which  have  been  notable 
for  frank  self-revelation.  Henry  Adams  would  of  course 
have  stoutly  denied  that  any  such  impertinence  as  self- 
revelation  was  either  intended  or  achieved  in  the  Edu 
cation.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  kept  a  diary 
(all  things  considered,  the  burden  of  proof  is  not  on 
us! ) ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he  would  have 
published  it  in  any  case.  A  man  who  regarded  himself 

1  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams:  an  Autobiography.  Hough- 
ton  Mifflin  Co.,  1918.  The  selection  is  a  part  of  an  admirable 
critique  in  the  April,  1919,  number  of  the  American  Historical 
Review.  By  permission  of  the  author  and  of  the  editors  of  the 
magazine.  The  article  should  be  read  as  a  whole  for  a  complete 
understanding  of  the  critic's  analysis. 

109 


no  CARL    BECKER 

as  of  no  more  significance  than  a  chance  deposit  on  the 
surface  of  the  world  might  indeed  write  down  an  inti 
mate  record  of  his  soul's  doings  as  an  exercise  in  cosmic 
irony;  but  the  idea  of  publishing  it  could  hardly  have 
lived  for  a  moment  in  the  lambent  flame  of  his  own 
sardonic  humor.  He  could  be  perverse,  but  perversity 
could  not  well  go  the  length  of  perpetrating  so  pointless 
a  joke  as  that  would  come  to. 

No,  Henry  Adams  would  not  reveal  himself  to  the 
curious  inspection  of  an  unsympathetic  world;  but  he 
would  write  a  book  for  the  purpose  of  exposing  a  dy 
namic  theory  of  history,  than  which  nothing  could  well  be 
more  impersonal  or  unrevealing.  With  a  philosophy  of 
history  the  Puritan  has  always  been  preoccupied;  and 
it  was  the  major  interest  of  Henry  Adams  throughout 
the  better  part  of  his  life.  He  never  gained  more  than 
a  faint  idea  of  any  intelligible  philosophy,  as  he  would 
himself  have  readily  admitted ;  but  after  a  lifetime  of  hard 
study  and  close  thinking,  the  matter  struck  him  thus: 

Between  the  dynamo  in  the  gallery  of  machines  and  the  engine- 
house  outside,  the  break  of  continuity  amounted  to  abysmal 
fracture  for  a  historian's  objects.  No  more  relation  could  he 
discover  between  the  steam  and  the  electric  current  than  between 
the  Cross  and  the  cathedral.  The  forces  were  interchangeable  if 
not  reversible,  but  he  could  see  only  an  absolute  fiat  in  elec 
tricity  as  in  faith. 

In  these  two  forces  the  secret  must  lie,  since  for  cen 
turies  faith  had  ruled  inexorably,  only  to  be  replaced  by 
electricity  which  promised  to  rule  quite  as  inexorably. 
To  find  the  secret  was  difficult  enough;  but 

any  schoolboy  could  see  that  man  as  a  force  must  be  measured 
by  motion,  from  a  fixed  point.  Psychology  helped  here  by  sug 
gesting  a  unit  —  the  point  of  history  when  man  held  the  highest 
idea  of  himself  as  a  unit  in  a  unified  universe.  Eight  or  ten  years 
of  study  had  led  Adams  to  think  he  might  use  the  century 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS  in 

1150-1250,  expressed  in  Amiens  Cathedral  and  the  Works  of 
Thomas  Aquinas,  as  the  unit  from  which  he  might  measure 
motion  down  to  his  own  time,  without  assuming  anything  as 
true  or  untrue  except  relation.  .  .  .  Setting  himself  to  the  task, 
he  began  a  volume  which  he  mentally  knew  as  "Mont-Saint- 
Michel  and  Chartres:  a  Study  in  Thirteenth-Century  Unity." 
From  that  point  he  proposed  to  fix  a  position  for  himself,  which 
he  could  label:  "The  Education  of  Henry  Adams:  a  Study  in 
Twentieth-Century  Multiplicity."  With  the  help  of  these  two 
points  of  relation,  he  hoped  to  project  his  lines  forward  and  back 
ward  indefinitely,  subject  to  correction  from  anyone  who  should 
know  better.  Thereupon,  he  sailed  for  home. 

You  are  to  understand,  therefore,  that  the  Education 
of  Henry  Adams  has  nothing  to  do  really  with  the  person 
Henry  Adams.  Since  the  time  of  Rousseau, 

the  Ego  has  steadily  tended  to  efface  itself,  and,  for  purposes  of 
model,  to  become  a  manikin,  on  which  the  toilet  of  education  is  to 
be  draped  in  order  to  show  the  fit  or  misfit  of  the  clothes.  The 
object  of  study  is  the  garment,  not  the  figure.  .  .  .  The  mani 
kin,  therefore,  has  the  same  value  as  any  other  geometrical  figure 
of  three  or  four  dimensions,  which  is  used  for  the  study  of 
relation.  For  that  purpose  it  cannot  be  spared;  it  is  the  only 
measure  of  motion,  of  proportion,  of  human  condition;  it  must 
have  the  air  of  reality;  it  must  be  taken  for  real;  it  must  be 
treated  as  though  it  had  life.  Who  knows?  Perhaps  it  had. 

Whether  it  had  life  or  not  is,  however,  of  no  importance. 
The  manikin  is  to  be  treated  impersonally;  and  will  be 
indicated  throughout  in  the  third  person,  not  as  the  au 
thor's  ego,  but  as  a  kind  of  projected  and  animated  geo 
metrical  point  upon  which  cosmic  lines  of  force  impinge! 
It  turns  out  that  the  manikin  had  life  after  all  —  a 
good  deal  of  it;  with  the  effect  that  as  you  go  on  you 
become  more  concerned  with  the  manikin  than  with  the 
clothes,  and  at  last  find  yourself  wholly  absorbed  with 
an  ego  more  subtle  and  complex,  at  times  more  exasperat 
ing,  yet  upon  the  whole  more  engaging,  and  above  all 
more  pervasive,  than  you  are  likely  to  come  upon  in 


H2  CARL   BECKER 

any  autobiography  of  modern  times.  It  is  really  wonder 
ful  how  the  clothes  fall  away  from  the  manikin,  how 
with  the  best  effort  at  draping  they  in  fact  refuse  to  be 
put  on  at  all.  The  reason  is  simple;  for  the  constant 
refrain  of  the  study  is  that  no  clothes  were  ever  found. 
The  manikin  is  therefore  always  in  evidence  for  lack 
of  covering,  and  ends  by  having  to  apologize  for  its  very 
existence.  "To  the  tired  student,  the  idea  that  he  must 
give  it  up  [the  search  for  philosophy-clothes]  seemed 
sheer  senility.  As  long  as  he  could  whisper,  he  would  go 
on  as  he  had  begun,  bluntly  refusing  to  meet  his  creator 
with  the  admission  that  the  creation  had  taught  him  noth 
ing  except  that  the  square  of  the  hypothenuse  of  a  right- 
angled  triangle  might  for  convenience  be  taken  as  equal 
to  something  else."  On  his  own  premises,  the  assump 
tion  that  the  manikin  would  ever  meet  his  creator  (if 
he  indeed  had  one),  or  that  his  creator  would  be  con 
cerned  with  his  opinion  of  the  creation,  is  gratuitous. 
On  his  own  premises,  there  is  something  too  much  of  the 
ego  here.  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams,  conceived  as 
a  study  in  the  philosophy  of  history,  turns  out  in  fact 
to  be  an  Apologia  pro  vita  sua,  one  of  the  most  self- 
centered  and  self-revealing  books  in  the  language. 

The  revelation  is  not  indeed  of  the  direct  sort  that 
springs  from  frank  and  insouciant  spontaneity.  Since 
the  revelation  was  not  intended,  the  process  is  tor 
tuous  in  the  extreme.  It  is  a  revelation  that  comes 
by  the  way,  made  manifest  in  the  effort  to  conceal  it, 
overlaid  by  all  sorts  of  cryptic  sentences  and  self-dep 
recatory  phrases,  half  hidden  by  the  protective  coloring 
taken  on  by  a  sensitive  mind  commonly  employing  para 
dox  and  delighting  in  perverse  and  teasing  mystification. 
One  can  never  be  sure  what  the  book  means;  but  taken 
at  its  face  value  the  Education  seems  to  be  the  story 
of  a  man  who  regarded  life  from  the  outside,  as  a  spec- 


THE   EDUCATION    OF    HENRY    ADAMS      113 

tator  at  the  play,  a  play  in  which  his  own  part  as 
spectator  was  taken  by  a  minor  character.  The  play 
was  amusing  in  its  absurdity,  but  it  touched  not  the 
spectator,  Henry  Adams,  who  was  content  to  sit  in  his 
protected  stall  and  laugh  in  his  sleeve  at  the  play  and 
the  players  — and  most  of  all  at  himself  for  laughing. 
Such  is  the  implication;  but  I  think  it  was  not  so.  In 
the  Mont-Saint-Michel1  Adams  speaks  of  those  young 
people  who  rarely  like  the  Romanesque.  "They  prefer 
the  Gothic.  .  .  .  No  doubt,  they  are  right,  since  they 
are  young:  but  men  and  women  who  have  lived  long 
and  are  tired  —  who  want  rest  —  who  have  done  with 
aspirations  and  ambitions  —  whose  life  has  been  a  broken 
arch  —  feel  this  repose  and  self-restraint  as  they  feel 
nothing  else."  The  Education  is  in  fact  the  record, 
tragic  and  pathetic  underneath  its  genial  irony,  of  the 
defeat  of  fine  aspirations  and  laudable  ambitions.  It  is 
the  story  of  a  life  which  the  man  himself,  in  his  old  age, 
looked  back  upon  as  a  broken  arch. 

One  is  not  surprised  that  a  man  of  Henry  Adams's 
antecedents  should  take  life  seriously;  but  no  sane  man, 
looking  upon  his  career  from  the  outside,  would  call  it 
a  failure.  Born  into  a  family  whose  traditions  were  in 
themselves  a  liberal  education,  Henry  Adams  enjoyed 
advantages  in  youth  such  as  few  boys  have.  It  was  at 
least  an  unusual  experience  to  be  able,  as  a  lad,  to  sit 
every  Sunday  "behind  a  President  grandfather,  and  to 
read  over  his  head  the  tablet  in  memory  of  a  President 
great-grandfather,  who  had  'pledged  his  life,  his  fortune, 
and  his  sacred  honor'  to  secure  the  independence  of  his 
country."  This  to  be  sure  might  not  have  been  an 
advantage  if  it  led  the  lad  to  regard  the  presidency 
as  a  heritable  office  in  the  family;  but  it  was  certainly 
a  great  deal  to  be  able  to  listen  daily,  at  his  father's 

1  Mont-Saint-Michel  and  Chartres,  p.  7.     [Author's  note.] 


H4  CARL    BECKER 

table,  to  talk  as  good  as  he  was  "ever  likely  to  hear 
again."  This  was  doubtless  one  of  the  reasons  why  he 
got  (or  was  it  only  that  it  seemed  so  to  him  in  his 
old  age?)  so  little  from  Harvard  College;  but  at  any 
rate  he  graduated  with  honors,  and  afterwards  enjoyed 
the  blessed  boon  of  two  care-free  years  of  idling  and 
study  in  Germany  and  Italy.  For  six  years,  as  private 
secretary  to  his  father  on  one  of  the  most  difficult  and 
successful  diplomatic  missions  in  the  history  of  his 
country,  he  watched  history  in  the  making,  and  gained 
an  inside  knowledge  of  English  politics  and  society  such 
as  comes  to  one  young  man  in  ten  thousand.  Returning 
to  America,  he  served  for  a  time  as  editor  of  the  North 
American,  and  was  for  seven  years  a  professor  of  history 
in  Harvard  College.  During  the  last  thirty-five  years 
of  his  life,  he  lived  alternately  in  Washington  and 
Paris.  Relieved  of  official  or  other  responsibility,  he 
travelled  all  over  the  world,  met  the  most  interesting 
people  of  his  generation,  devoted  himself  at  leisure  to 
the  study  of  art  and  literature,  philosophy  and  science, 
and  wrote,  as  an  incident  in  a  long  life  of  serious  en 
deavor,  twelve  or  fifteen  volumes  of  history  which  by 
common  consent  rank  with  the  best  work  done  in  that 
field  by  American  scholars. 

By  no  common  standard  does  such  a  record  measure 
failure.  Most  men  would  have  been  satisfied  with  the 
life  he  lived  apart  from  the  books  he  wrote,  or  with 
the  books  he  wrote  apart  from  the  life  he  lived.  Henry 
Adams  is  commonly  counted  with  the  historians;  but 
he  scarcely  thought  of  himself  as  one,  except  in  so 
far  as  he  sought  and  failed  to  find  a  philosophy  of  history. 
It  is  characteristic  that  in  the  Education  he  barely  men 
tions  the  History  of  the  United  States.  The  enterprise, 
which  he  undertook  for  lack  of  something  better,  he 
always  regarded  as  negligible  —  an  episode  in  his  life 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS  115 

to  be  chronicled  like  any  other.  But  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  most  of  us  who  call  ourselves  historians,  with  far 
less  justification,  would  be  well  content  if  we  could 
count,  as  the  result  of  a  lifetime  of  effort,  such  a  shelf- 
ful  of  volumes  to  our  credit.  The  average  professor  of 
history  might  well  expect,  on  less  showing,  to  be  chosen 
president  of  the  Historical  Association;  in  which  case 
the  prospect  of  having  to  deliver  a  presidential  address 
might  lead  him  to  speculate  idly  in  idle  moments  upon 
the  meaning  of  history;  but  the  riddle  of  existence  would 
not  greatly  trouble  his  sleep,  nor  could  it  be  said  of  him, 
as  Henry  Adams  said  of  himself,  that  "a  historical 
formula  that  should  satisfy  the  conditions  of  the  stellar 
universe  weighed  heavily  upon  his  mind."  He  would 
live  out  the  remnant  of  his  days,  an  admired  and  a  feted 
leader  in  the  scholar's  world,  wholly  unaware  that  his 
life  had  been  a  cosmic  failure. 


It  is  not  likely  that  many  readers  will  see  the  tragedy 
of  a  failure  that  looks  like  success,  or  miss  the  phil 
osophy-clothes  that  were  never  found.  And  indeed  we 
may  all  be  well  content  with  the  doings  of  this  manikin 
that  turns  out  to  be  so  lively  an  ego.  Henry  Adams  was 
worth  a  wilderness  of  philosophies.  Perhaps  we  should 
have  liked  the  book  better  if  he  could  have  taken  himself 
more  frankly,  as  a  matter  of  course,  for  what  he  was  — 
a  man  of  wide  experience,  of  altogether  uncommon  at 
tainments,  of  extraordinarily  incisive  mental  power;  and 
if,  resting  on  this  assumption,  he  had  told  us  more 
directly,  as  something  we  should  like  to  know,  what  he 
had  done,  what  people  he  had  met  and  known,  what 
events  he  had  shared  in  or  observed,  and  what  he  thought 
about  it  all.  This  he  does  do  of  course,  in  his  own 
enigmatic  way,  in  the  process  of  explaining  where  and 


n6  CARL    BECKER 

how  he  sought  education  and  failed  to  find  it;  and 
fortunately,  in  the  course  of  the  leisurely  journey,  he 
takes  us  into  many  by-paths  and  shows  us,  by  the  easy 
play  of  his  illuminating  intelligence,  much  strange 
country,  and  many  people  whom  we  have  never  known, 
or  have  never  known  so  intimately.  When  this  happens, 
when  the  manikin  forgets  itself  and  its  education-clothes, 
and  merely  describes  people  or  types  of  mind  or  social 
customs,  the  result  is  wholly  admirable.  There  are 
inimitable  passages,  and  the  number  is  large,  which  one 
cannot  forget.  One  will  not  soon  forget  the  young 
men  of  the  Harvard  class  of  '58,  who  were  "negative 
to  a  degree  that  in  the  end  became  positive  and  trium 
phant" ;  or  the  exquisitely  drawn  portrait  of  "Madame 
President,"  all  things  considered  the  finest  passage  in 
the  book;  or  the  picture  of  old  John  Quincy  Adams 
coming  slowly  down-stairs  one  hot  summer  morning  and 
with  massive  and  silent  solemnity  leading  the  rebellious 
little  Henry  to  school  against  his  will;  or  yet  the  re 
flections  of  the  little  Henry  himself  (or  was  it  the  reflec 
tion  of  an  older  Henry?),  who  recognized  on  this 
occasion  "that  the  President,  though  a  tool  of  tyranny, 
had  done  his  disreputable  work  with  a  certain  intelligence. 
He  had  shown  no  temper,  no  irritation,  no  personal  feel 
ing,  and  had  made  no  display  of  force.  Above  all,  he 
had  held  his  tongue."  .  .  . 

The  number  of  passages  one  would  wish  to  quote  is 
legion;  but  one  must  be  content  to  say  that  the  book 
is  fascinating  throughout  —  particularly  perhaps  in  those 
parts  which  are  not  concerned  with  the  education  of 
Henry  Adams.  Where  this  recondite  and  cosmic  problem 
is  touched  upon,  there  are  often  qualifications  to  be 
made.  The  perpetual  profession  of  ignorance  and  in 
capacity  seems  at  times  a  bit  disingenuous;  and  we 
have  to  do  for  the  most  part,  not  with  the  way  things 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS  117 

struck  Adams  at  the  time,  but  with  the  way  it  seemed 
to  him,  as  an  old  man  looking  back  upon  the  "broken 
arch,"  they  should  have  struck  him.  Besides,  in  the 
later  chapters,  in  which  he  deals  with  the  dynamic  theory 
of  history,  the  problem  was  so  vague,  even  to  himself, 
that  we  too  often  do  not  know  what  he  wishes  to  convey. 
Apropos  of  the  Chicago  Fair,  which  like  everything 
else  in  his  later  years  linked  itself  to  the  business  of 
the  dynamo  and  the  Virgin,  he  says:  "Did  he  himself 
quite  know  what  he  meant?  Certainly  not!  If  he  had 
known  enough  to  state  his  problem,  his  education  would 
have  been  completed  at  once."  Is  this  the  statement 
of  a  fact,  or  only  the  reflection  of  a  perversity?  We  do 
not  know.  Most  readers,  at  all  events,  having  reached 
page  343,  will  not  be  inclined  to  dispute  the  assertion. 
Yet  we  must  after  all  be  grateful  for  this  meaningless 
philosophy  of  history  (the  more  so  perhaps  since  it  is 
meaningless) ;  for  without  it  we  should  never  have  had 
either  the  Mont-Saint-Mkhel  or  The  Education  of  Henry 
Adams  —  "books  which  no  gentleman's  library"  need 
contain,  but  which  will  long  be  read  by  the  curious  in 
quirer  into  the  nature  of  the  human  heart. 

Henry  Adams  lies  buried  in  Rock  Creek  Cemetery,  in 
Washington.  The  casual  visitor  might  perhaps  notice, 
on  a  slight  elevation,  a  group  of  shrubs  and  small  trees 
making  a  circular  enclosure.  If  he  should  step  up  into 
this  concealed  spot,  he  would  see  on  the  opposite  side  a 
polished  marble  seat;  and  placing  himself  there  he 
would  find  himself  facing  a  seated  figure,  done  in  bronze, 
loosely  wrapped  in  a  mantle  which,  covering  the  body 
and  the  head,  throws  into  strong  relief  a  face  of  singular 
fascination.  Whether  man  or  woman,  it  would  puzzle 
the  observer  to  say.  The  eyes  are  half  closed,  in  reverie 
rather  than  in  sleep.  The  figure  seems  not  to  convey  the 
sense  either  of  life  or  death,  of  joy  or  sorrow,  of  hope 


n8  CARL   BECKER 

or  despair.  It  has  lived,  but  life  is  done;  it  has  ex 
perienced  all  things,  but  is  now  oblivious  of  all;  it  has 
questioned,  but  questions  no  more.  The  casual  visitor 
will  perhaps  approach  the  figure,  looking  for  a  symbol, 
a  name,  a  date  —  some  revelation.  There  is  none.  The 
level  ground,  carpeted  with  dead  leaves,  gives  no  indi 
cation  of  a  grave  beneath.  It  may  be  that  the  puzzled 
visitor  will  step  outside,  walk  around  the  enclosure, 
examine  the  marble  shaft  against  which  the  figure  is 
placed;  and,  finding  nothing  there,  return  to  the  seat 
and  look  long  at  the  strange  face.  What  does  he  make 
of  it  —  this  level  spot,  these  shrubs,  this  figure  that 
speaks  and  yet  is  silent?  Nothing  — or  what  he  will. 
Such  was  life  to  Henry  Adams,  who  lived  long,  and  ques 
tioned  seriously,  and  would  not  be  content  with  the 
dishonest  or  the  facile  answer. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  AN  EDUCATION  x 
BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

One  day,  while  at  work  in  the  coal-mine,  I  happened 
to  overhear  two  miners  talking  about  a  great  school  for 
coloured  people  somewhere  in  Virginia.  This  was  the 
first  time  that  I  had  ever  heard  anything  about  any  kind 
of  school  or  college  that  was  more  pretentious  than  the 
little  coloured  school  in  our  town. 

In  the  darkness  of  the  mine  I  noiselessly  crept  as 
close  as  I  could  to  the  two  men  who  were  talking.  I 
heard  one  tell  the  other  that  not  only  was  the  school 
established  for  the  members  of  my  race,  but  that  oppor 
tunities  were  provided  by  which  poor  but  worthy  students 
could  work  out  all  or  a  part  of  the  cost  of  board,  and 
at  the  same  time  be  taught  some  trade  or  industry. 

As  they  went  on  describing  the  school,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  it  must  be  the  greatest  place  on  earth,  and 
not  even  Heaven  presented  more  attractions  for  me  at 
that  time  than  did  the  Hampton  Normal  and  Agricul 
tural  Institute  in  Virginia,  about  which  these  men  were 
talking.  I  resolved  at  once  to  go  to  that  school,  although 
I  had  no  idea  where  it  was,  or  how  many  miles  away,  or 
how  I  was  going  to  reach  it;  I  remembered  only  that  I 
was  on  fire  constantly  with  one  ambition,  and  that  was 
to  go  to  Hampton.  This  thought  was  with  me  day  and 
night. 

After  hearing  of  the  Hampton  Institute,  I  continued 

1  From  Up  from  Slavery,  by  Booker  T.  Washington.  Copy 
right,  1900,  1901,  by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.  By  permission. 

119 


120  BOOKER   T.   WASHINGTON 

to  work  for  a  few  months  longer  in  the  coal-mine.  While 
at  work  there,  I  heard  of  a  vacant  position  in  the  house 
hold  of  General  Lewis  Ruffner,  the  owner  of  the  salt- 
furnace  and  coal-mine.  Mrs.  Viola  Ruffner,  the  wife 
of  General  Ruffner,  was  a  "Yankee"  woman  from  Ver 
mont.  Mrs.  Ruffner  had  a  reputation  all  through  the 
vicinity  for  being  very  strict  with  her  servants,  and 
especially  with  the  boys  who  tried  to  serve  her.  Few 
of  them  had  remained  with  her  more  than  two  or  three 
weeks.  They  all  left  with  the  same  excuse:  she  was  too 
strict.  I  decided,  however,  that  I  would  rather  try  Mrs. 
Ruffner's  house  than  remain  in  the  coal-mine,  and  so  my 
mother  applied  to  her  for  the  vacant  position.  I  was 
hired  at  a  salary  of  $5  per  month. 

I  had  heard  so  much  about  Mrs.  Ruffner's  severity  that 
I  was  almost  afraid  to  see  her,  and  trembled  when  I 
went  into  her  presence.  I  had  not  lived  with  her  many 
weeks,  however,  before  I  began  to  understand  her.  I 
soon  began  to  learn  that,  first  of  all,  she  wanted  every 
thing  kept  clean  about  her,  that  she  wanted  things  done 
promptly  and  systematically,  and  at  the  bottom  of  every 
thing  she  wanted  absolute  honesty  and  frankness. 
Nothing  must  be  sloven  or  slipshod;  every  door,  every 
fence,  must  be  kept  in  repair. 

I  cannot  now  recall  how  long  I  lived  with  Mrs.  Ruff 
ner  before  going  to  Hampton,  but  I  think  it  must  have 
been  a  year  and  a  half.  At  any  rate,  I  here  repeat 
what  I  have  said  more  than  once  before,  that  the  lessons 
that  I  learned  in  the  home  of  Mrs.  Ruffner  were  as 
valuable  to  me  as  any  education  I  have  ever  gotten 
anywhere  since.  Even  to  this  day  I  never  see  bits  of 
paper  scattered  around  a  house  or  in  the  street  that  I 
do  not  want  to  pick  them  up  at  once.  I  never  see  a 
filthy  yard  that  I  do  not  want  to  clean  it,  a  paling  off 
of  a  fence  that  I  do  not  want  to  put  it  on,  an  unpainted 


THE   STRUGGLE    FOR   AN   EDUCATION     121 

or  unwhitewashed  house  that  I  do  not  want  to  paint 
or  whitewash  it,  or  a  button  off  one's  clothes,  or  a 
grease-spot  on  them  or  on  a  floor,  that  I  do  not  want 
to  call  attention  to  it. 

From  fearing  Mrs.  Ruffner  I  soon  learned  to  look 
upon  her  as  one  of  my  best  friends.  When  she  found 
that  she  could  trust  me  she  did  so  implicitly.  During 
the  one  or  two  winters  that  I  was  with  her  she  gave  me 
an  opportunity  to  go  to  school  for  an  hour  in  the  day 
during  a  portion  of  the  winter  months,  but  most  of  my 
studying  was  done  at  night,  sometimes  alone,  sometimes 
under  someone  whom  I  could  hire  to  teach  me.  Mrs. 
Ruffner  always  encouraged  and  sympathized  with  me  in 
all  my  efforts  to  get  an  education.  It  was  while  living 
with  her  that  I  began  to  get  together  my  first  library. 
I  secured  a  dry-goods  box,  knocked  out  one  side  of  it, 
put  some  shelves  in  it,  and  began  putting  into  it  every 
kind  of  book  that  I  could  get  my  hands  upon,  and  called 
it  my  "library." 

Notwithstanding  my  success  at  Mrs.  Ruffner's  I 
did  not  give  up  the  idea  of  going  to  the  Hampton  Insti 
tute.  In  the  fall  of  1872  I  determined  to  make  an  effort 
to  get  there,  although,  as  I  have  stated,  I  had  no  definite 
idea  of  the  direction  in  which  Hampton  was,  or  of 
what  it  would  cost  to  go  there.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
one  thoroughly  sympathized  with  me  in  my  ambition  to 
go  to  Hampton  unless  it  was  my  mother,  and  she  was 
troubled  with  a  grave  fear  that  I  was  starting  out  on  a 
"wild-goose  chase."  At  any  rate,  I  got  only  a  half 
hearted  consent  from  her  that  I  might  start.  The  small 
amount  of  money  that  I  had  earned  had  been  consumed 
by  my  stepfather  and  the  remainder  of  the  family,  with 
the  exception  of  a  very  few  dollars,  and  so  I  had  very 
little  with  which  to  buy  clothes  and  pay  my  travelling 
expenses.  My  brother  John  helped  me  all  that  he  could, 


122  BOOKER   T.   WASHINGTON 

but  of  course  that  was  not  a  great  deal,  for  his  work  was 
in  the  coal-mine,  where  he  did  not  earn  much,  and 
most  of  what  he  did  earn  went  in  the  direction  of  paying 
the  household  expenses. 

Perhaps  the  thing  that  touched  and  pleased  me  most 
in  connection  with  my  starting  for  Hampton  was  the 
interest  that  many  of  the  older  coloured  people  took  in 
the  matter.  They  had  spent  the  best  days  of  their  lives 
in  slavery,  and  hardly  expected  to  live  to  see  the  time 
when  they  would  see  a  member  of  their  race  leave  home 
to  attend  a  boarding-school.  Some  of  these  older  people 
would  give  me  a  nickel,  others  a  quarter,  or  a  handker 
chief. 

Finally  the  great  day  came,  and  I  started  for  Hamp 
ton.  I  had  only  a  small,  cheap  satchel  that  contained 
what  few  articles  of  clothing  I  could  get.  My  mother 
at  the  time  was  rather  weak  and  broken  in  health.  I 
hardly  expected  to  see  her  again,  and  thus  our  parting 
was  all  the  more  sad.  She,  however,  was  very  brave 
through  it  all.  At  that  time  there  were  no  through 
trains  connecting  that  part  of  West  Virginia  with  eastern 
Virginia.  Trains  ran  only  a  portion  of  the  way,  and 
the  remainder  of  the  distance  was  travelled  by  stage 
coaches. 

The  distance  from  Maiden  to  Hampton  is  about  five 
hundred  miles.  I  had  not  been  away  from  home  many 
hours  before  it  began  to  grow  painfully  evident  that  I 
did  not  have  enough  money  to  pay  my  fare  to  Hampton. 
One  experience  I  shall  long  remember.  I  had  been 
travelling  over  the  mountains  most  of  the  afternoon  in 
an  old-fashioned  stage-coach,  when,  late  in  the  evening, 
the  coach  stopped  for  the  night  at  a  common,  unpainted 
house  called  a  hotel.  All  the  other  passengers  except 
myself  were  whites.  In  my  ignorance  I  supposed  that 
the  little  hotel  existed  for  the  purpose  of  accommodating 


THE   STRUGGLE   FOR   AN   EDUCATION    123 

the  passengers  who  travelled  on  the  stage-coach.  The 
difference  that  the  colour  of  one's  skin  would  make  I  had 
not  thought  anything  about.  After  all  the  other  pas 
sengers  had  been  shown  rooms  and  were  getting  ready 
for  supper,  I  shyly  presented  myself  before  the  man  at 
the  desk.  It  is  true  I  had  practically  no  money  in  my 
pocket  with  which  to  pay  for  bed  or  food,  but  I  had 
hoped  in  some  way  to  beg  my  way  into  the  good  graces 
of  the  landlord,  for  at  that  season  in  the  mountains  of 
Virginia  the  weather  was  cold,  and  I  wanted  to  get  in 
doors  for  the  night.  Without  asking  as  to  whether  I 
had  any  money,  the  man  at  the  desk  firmly  refused  to 
even  consider  the  matter  of  providing  me  with  food  or 
lodging.  This  was  my  first  experience  in  finding  out 
what  the  colour  of  my  skin  meant.  In  some  way  I 
managed  to  keep  warm  by  walking  about,  and  so  got 
through  the  night.  My  whole  soul  was  so  bent  upon 
reaching  Hampton  that  I  did  not  have  time  to  cherish 
any  bitterness  toward  the  hotel-keeper. 

By  walking,  begging  rides  both  in  wagons  and  in  the 
cars,  in  some  way,  after  a  number  of  days,  I  reached  the 
city  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  about  eighty-two  miles  from 
Hampton.  When  I  reached  there,  tired,  hungry,  and 
dirty,  it  was  late  in  the  night.  I  had  never  been  in  a 
large  city,  and  this  rather  added  to  my  misery.  When 
I  reached  Richmond,  I  was  completely  out  of  money. 
I  had  not  a  single  acquaintance  in  the  place,  and,  be 
ing  unused  to  city  ways,  I  did  not  know  where  to  go.  I 
applied  at  several  places  for  lodging,  but  they  all  wanted 
money,  and  that  was  what  I  did  not  have.  Knowing 
nothing  else  better  to  do,  I  walked  the  streets.  In  doing 
this  I  passed  by  many  food-stands  where  fried  chicken 
and  half-moon  apple  pies  were  piled  high  and  made 
to  present  a  most  tempting  appearance.  At  that  time 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  would  have  promised  all  that  I 


124  BOOKER   T.   WASHINGTON 

expected  to  possess  in  the  future  to  have  gotten  hold 
of  one  of  those  chicken  legs  or  one  of  those  pies.  But 
I  could  not  get  either  of  these,  nor  anything  else  to  eat. 

I  must  have  walked  the  streets  till  after  midnight.  At 
last  I  became  so  exhausted  that  I  could  walk  no  longer. 
I  was  tired,  I  was  hungry,  I  was  everything  but  dis 
couraged.  Just  about  the  time  when  I  reached  extreme 
physical  exhaustion,  I  came  upon  a  portion  of  a  street 
where  the  board  sidewalk  was  considerably  elevated. 
I  waited  for  a  few  minutes,  till  I  was  sure  that  no 
passers-by  could  see  me,  and  then  crept  under  the  side 
walk  and  lay  for  the  night  upon  the  ground,  with  my 
satchel  of  clothing  for  a  pillow.  Nearly  all  night  I 
could  hear  the  tramp  of  feet  over  my  head.  The  next 
morning  I  found  myself  somewhat  refreshed,  but  I  was 
extremely  hungry,  because  it  had  been  a  long  time  since 
I  had  had  sufficient  food.  As  soon  as  it  became  light 
enough  for  me  to  see  my  surroundings  I  noticed  that  I 
was  near  a  large  ship,  and  that  this  ship  seemed  to  be 
unloading  a  cargo  of  pigiron.  I  went  at  once  to  the 
vessel  and  asked  the  captain  to  permit  me  to  help  un 
load  the  vessel  in  order  to  get  money  for  food.  The 
captain,  a  white  man,  who  seemed  to  be  kind-hearted, 
consented.  I  worked  long  enough  to  earn  money  for 
my  breakfast,  and  it  seems  to  me,  as  I  remember  it  now, 
to  have  been  about  the  best  breakfast  that  I  have  ever 
eaten. 

My  work  pleased  the  captain  so  well  that  he  told  me 
if  I  desired  I  could  continue  working  for  a  small  amount 
per  day.  This  I  was  very  glad  to  do.  I  continued  work 
ing  on  this  vessel  for  a  number  of  days.  After  buying 
food  with  the  small  wages  I  received  there  was  not  much 
left  to  add  to  the  amount  I  must  get  to  pay  my  way 
to  Hampton.  In  order  to  economize  in  every  way  pos 
sible,  so  as  to  be  sure  to  reach  Hampton  in  a  reason- 


THE   STRUGGLE   FOR  AN   EDUCATION    125 

able  time,  I  continued  to  sleep  under  the  same  sidewalk 
that  gave  me  shelter  the  first  night  I  was  in  Richmond. 
Many  years  after  that  the  coloured  citizens  of  Richmond 
very  kindly  tendered  me  a  reception  at  which  there  must 
have  been  two  thousand  people  present.  This  recep 
tion  was  held  not  far  from  the  spot  where  I  slept  the 
first  night  I  spent  in  that  city,  and  I  must  confess  that 
my  mind  was  more  upon  the  sidewalk  that  first  gave 
me  shelter  than  upon  the  reception,  agreeable  and  cor 
dial  as  it  was. 

When  I  had  saved  what  I  considered  enough  money 
with  which  to  reach  Hampton,  I  thanked  the  captain  of 
the  vessel  for  his  kindness,  and  started  again.  Without 
any  unusual  occurrence  I  reached  Hampton,  with  a 
surplus  of  exactly  fifty  cents  with  which  to  begin  my 
education.  To  me  it  had  been  a  long,  eventful  journey; 
but  the  first  sight  of  the  large,  three-story,  brick  school 
building  seemed  to  have  rewarded  me  for  all  that  I  had 
undergone  in  order  to  reach  the  place.  If  the  people 
who  gave  the  money  to  provide  that  building  could  appre 
ciate  the  influence  the  sight  of  it  had  upon  me,  as  well 
as  upon  thousands  of  other  youths,  they  would  feel  all 
the  more  encouraged  to  make  such  gifts.  It  seemed  to 
me  to  be  the  largest  and  most  beautiful  building  I  had 
ever  seen.  The  sight  of  it  seemed  to  give  me  new  life. 
I  felt  that  a  new  kind  of  existence  had  now  begun  — 
that  life  would  now  have  a  new  meaning.  I  felt  that 
I  had  reached  the  promised  land,  and  I  resolved  to  let 
no  obstacle  prevent  me  from  putting  forth  the  highest 
effort  to  fit  myself  to  accomplish  the  most  good  in  the 
world. 

As  soon  as  possible  after  reaching  the  grounds  of  the 
Hampton  Institute,  I  presented  myself  before  the  head 
teacher  for  assignment  to  a  class.  Having  been  so  long 
without  proper  food,  a  bath,  and  change  of  clothing,  I 


126  BOOKER   T.   WASHINGTON 

did  not,  of  course,  make  a  very  favourable  impression 
upon  her,  and  I  could  see  at  once  that  there  were  doubts 
in  her  mind  about  the  wisdom  of  admitting  me  as  a 
student.  I  felt  that  I  could  hardly  blame  her  if  she 
got  the  idea  that  I  was  a  worthless  loafer  or  tramp. 
For  some  time  she  did  not  refuse  to  admit  me,  neither 
did  she  decide  in  my  favour,  and  I  continued  to  linger 
about  her,  and  to  impress  her  in  all  the  ways  I  could 
with  my  worthiness.  In  the  meantime  I  saw  her  ad 
mitting  other  students,  and  that  added  greatly  to  my  dis 
comfort,  for  I  felt,  deep  down  in  my  heart,  that  I  could 
do  as  well  as  they,  if  I  could  only  get  a  chance  to  show 
what  was  in  me. 

After  some  hours  had  passed,  the  head  teacher  said 
to  me:  "The  adjoining  recitation-room  needs  sweeping. 
Take  the  broom  and  sweep  it." 

It  occurred  to  me  at  once  that  here  was  my  chance. 
Never  did  I  receive  an  order  with  more  delight.  I  knew 
that  I  could  sweep,  for  Mrs.  Ruffner  had  thoroughly 
taught  me  how  to  do  that  when  I  lived  with  her. 

I  swept  the  recitation-room  three  times.  Then  I  got 
a  dusting-cloth  and  I  dusted  it  four  times.  All  the  wood 
work  around  the  walls,  every  bench,  table,  and  desk, 
I  went  over  four  times  with  my  dusting-cloth.  Besides, 
every  piece  of  furniture  had  been  moved  and  every  closet 
and  corner  in  the  room  had  been  thoroughly  cleaned. 
I  had  the  feeling  that  in  a  large  measure  my  future 
depended  upon  the  impression  I  made  upon  the  teacher 
in  the  cleaning  of  that  room.  When  I  was  through,  I 
reported  to  the  head  teacher.  She  was  a  "Yankee" 
woman  who  knew  just  where  to  look  for  dirt.  She  went 
into  the  room  and  inspected  the  floor  and  closets;  then 
she  took  her  handkerchief  and  rubbed  it  on  the  wood 
work  about  the  walls,  and  over  the  table  and  benches. 
When  she  was  unable  to  find  one  bit  of  dirt  on  the  floor, 


THE   STRUGGLE    FOR   AN   EDUCATION     127 

or  a  particle  of  dust  on  any  of  the  furniture,  she  quietly 
remarked,  "I  guess  you  will  do  to  enter  this  institution." 
I  was  one  of  the  happiest  souls  on  earth.  The  sweep 
ing  of  that  room  was  my  college  examination,  and  never 
did  any  youth  pass  an  examination  for  entrance  into 
Harvard  or  Yale  that  gave  him  more  genuine  satisfac 
tion.  I  have  passed  several  examinations  since  then, 
but  I  have  always  felt  that  this  was  the  best  one  I 
ever  passed. 


ENTERING  JOURNALISM  * 
JACOB  A.  RIIS 

When  at  last  I  got  well  enough  to  travel,  I  set  my  face 
toward  the  east,  and  journeyed  on  foot  through  the  north 
ern  coal  regions  of  Pennsylvania  by  slow  stages,  caring 
little  whither  I  went,  and  earning  just  enough  by  peddling 
flat-irons  to  pay  my  way.  It  was  spring  when  I  started; 
the  autumn  tints  were  on  the  leaves  when  I  brought  up 
in  New  York  at  last,  as  nearly  restored  as  youth  and 
the  long  tramp  had  power  to  do.  But  the  restless  energy 
that  had  made  of  me  a  successful  salesman  was  gone. 
I  thought  only,  if  I  thought  at  all,  of  finding  some  quiet 
place  where  I  could  sit  and  see  the  world  go  by  that 
concerned  me  no  longer.  With  a  dim  idea  of  being 
sent  into  the  farthest  wilds  as  an  operator,  I  went  to 
a  business  college  on  Fourth  Avenue  and  paid  $20  to 
learn  telegraphing.  It  was  the  last  money  I  had.  I 
attended  the  school  in  the  afternoon.  In  the  morning 
I  peddled  flat-irons,  earning  money  for  my  board,  and 
so  made  out. 

One  day,  while  I  was  so  occupied,  I  saw  among  the 
"want"  advertisements  in  a  newspaper  one  offering  the 
position  of  city  editor  on  a  Long  Island  City  weekly  to 
a  competent  man.  Something  of  my  old  ambition  stirred 
within  me.  It  did  not  occur  to  me  that  city  editors 

1  From  The  Making  of  an  American,  by  Jacob  A.  Riis.  Copy 
right,  1901,  by  The  Outlook  Co.  Copyright,  ipoi,  by  The 
Macmillan  Co.  By  permission  of  Mrs.  Jacob  A.  Riis  and  of  the 
publishers. 

128 


ENTERING   JOURNALISM  129 

were  not  usually  obtained  by  advertising,  still  less  that 
I  was  not  competent,  having  only  the  vaguest  notions 
of  what  the  functions  of  a  city  editor  might  be.  I 
applied  for  the  job,  and  got  it  at  once.  Eight  dollars 
a  week  was  to  be  my  salary;  my  job,  to  fill  the  local 
column  and  attend  to  the  affairs  of  Hunter's  Point  and 
Blissville  generally,  politics  excluded.  The  editor  at 
tended  to  that.  In  twenty- four  hours  I  was  hard  at 
work  writing  up  my  then  most  ill-favored  bailiwick.  It 
it  none  too  fine  yet,  but  in  those  days,  when  every 
nuisance  crowded  out  of  New  York  found  refuge  there, 
it  stunk  to  heaven. 

Certainly  I  had  entered  journalism  by  the  back  door, 
very  far  back  at  that,  when  I  joined  the  staff  of  the 
Review.  Signs  of  that  appeared  speedily,  and  multi 
plied  day  by  day.  On  the  third  day  of  my  employment 
I  beheld  the  editor-in-chief  being  thrashed  down  the 
street  by  an  irate  coachman  whom  he  had  offended,  and 
when,  in  a  spirit  of  loyalty,  I  would  have  cast  in  my 
lot  with  him,  I  was  held  back  by  one  of  the  printers 
with  the  laughing  comment  that  that  was  his  daily 
diet  and  that  it  was  good  for  him.  That  was  the  only  way 
any  one  ever  got  any  satisfaction  or  anything  else  out  of 
him.  Judging  from  the  goings  on  about  the  office  in 
the  two  weeks  I  was  there,  he  must  have  been  ex 
tensively  in  debt  to  all  sorts  of  people  who  were  trying 
to  collect.  When,  on  my  second  deferred  pay-day,  I 
met  him  on  the  stairs,  propelled  by  his  washerwoman, 
who  brought  her  basket  down  on  his  head  with  every 
step  he  took,  calling  upon  the  populace  (the  stairs  were 
outside  the  building)  to  witness  just  punishment  meted 
out  to  him  for  failing  to  pay  for  the  washing  of  his 
shirts,  I  rightly  concluded  that  the  city  editor's  claim 
stood  no  show.  I  left  him  owing  me  two  weeks'  pay, 
but  I  freely  forgive  him.  I  think  I  got  my  money's 


i3o  JACOB    A.    RIIS 

worth  of  experience.  I  did  not  let  grass  grow  under 
my  feet  as  "city  editor."  Hunter's  Point  had  received 
for  once  a  thorough  raking  over,  and  I  my  first  lesson 
in  hunting  the  elusive  item  and,  when  found,  making 
a  note  of  it. 

Except  for  a  Newfoundland  pup  which  some  one  had 
given  me,  I  went  back  over  the  river  as  poor  as  I  had 
come.  The  dog  proved  rather  a  doubtful  possession  as 
the  days  went  by.  Its  appetite  was  tremendous,  and 
its  preference  for  my  society  embarrassingly  unrestrained. 
It  would  not  be  content  to  sleep  anywhere  else  than 
in  my  room.  If  I  put  it  out  in  the  yard,  it  forthwith 
organized  a  search  for  me  in  which  the  entire  neighbor 
hood  was  compelled  to  take  part,  willy-nilly.  Its  man 
ner  of  doing  it  boomed  the  local  trade  in  hair-brushes 
and  mantel  bric-a-brac,  but  brought  on  complications 
with  the  landlord  in  the  morning  that  usually  resulted 
in  the  departure  of  Bob  and  myself  for  other  pastures. 
Part  with  him  I  could  not;  for  Bob  loved  me.  Once 
I  tried,  when  it  seemed  that  there  was  no  choice.  I  had 
been  put  out  for  perhaps  the  tenth  time,  and  I  had  no 
more  money  left  to  provide  for  our  keep.  A  Wall  Street 
broker  had  advertised  for  a  watch-dog,  and  I  went  with 
Bob  to  see  him.  But  when  he  would  have  counted  the 
three  gold  pieces  he  offered  into  my  hand,  I  saw  Bob's 
honest  brown  eyes  watching  me  with  a  look  of  such 
faithful  affection  that  I  dropped  the  coins  as  if  they 
burned,  and  caught  him  about  the  neck  to  tell  him  that 
we  would  never  part.  Bob  put  his  huge  paws  on  my 
shoulders,  licked  my  face,  and  barked  such  a  joyous 
bark  of  challenge  to  the  world  in  general  that  even  the 
Wall  Street  man  was  touched. 

"I  guess  you  are  too  good  friends  to  part,"  he  said. 
And  so  we  were. 

We  left  Wall  Street  and  its  gold  behind  to  go  out  and 


ENTERING   JOURNALISM  131 

starve  together.  Literally  we  did  that  in  the  days  that 
followed.  I  had  taken  to  peddling  books,  an  illustrated 
Dickens  issued  by  the  Harpers,  but  I  barely  earned 
enough  by  it  to  keep  life  in  us  and  a  transient  roof  over 
our  heads.  I  call  it  transient  because  it  was  rarely  the 
same  two  nights  together,  for  causes  which  I  have  ex 
plained.  In  the  day  Bob  made  out  rather  better  than  I. 
He  could  always  coax  a  supper  out  of  the  servant  at 
the  basement  gate  by  his  curvetings  and  tricks,  while  I 
pleaded  vainly  and  hungrily  with  the  mistress  at  the 
front  door.  Dickens  was  a  drug  in  the  market.  A 
curious  fatality  had  given  me  a  copy  of  "Hard  Times" 
to  canvass  with.  I  think  no  amount  of  good  fortune 
could  turn  my  head  while  it  stands  in  my  bookcase. 
One  look  at  it  brings  back  too  vividly  that  day  when 
Bob  and  I  had  gone,  desperate  and  breakfastless,  from 
the  last  bed  we  might  know  for  many  days,  to  try  to  sell 
it  and  so  get  the  means  to  keep  us  for  another  twenty- 
four  hours. 

It  was  not  only  breakfast  we  lacked.  The  day  before 
we  had  had  only  a  crust  together.  Two  days  without 
food  is  not  good  preparation  for  a  day's  canvassing. 
We  did  the  best  we  could.  Bob  stood  by  and  wagged 
his  tail  persuasively  while  I  did  the  talking;  but  luck 
was  dead  against  us,  and  "Hard  Times"  stuck  to  us  for 
all  we  tried.  Evening  came  and  found  us  down  by  the 
Cooper  Institute,  with  never  a  cent.  Faint  with  hunger, 
I  sat  down  on  the  steps  under  the  illuminated  clock, 
while  Bob  stretched  himself  at  my  feet.  He  had  be 
guiled  the  cook  in  one  of  the  last  houses  we  called  at, 
and  his  stomach  was  filled.  From  the  corner  I  had 
looked  on  enviously.  For  me  there  was  no  supper,  as  there 
had  been  no  dinner  and  no  breakfast.  To-morrow  there 
was  another  day  of  starvation.  How  long  was  this  to 
last?  Was  it  any  use  to  keep  up  a  struggle  so  hopeless? 


132  JACOB    A.    RIIS 

From  this  very  spot  I  had  gone,  hungry  and  wrathful, 
three  years  before  when  the  dining  Frenchmen  for 
whom  I  wanted  to  fight  thrust  me  forth  from  their 
company.  Three  wasted  years!  Then  I  had  one  cent 
in  my  pocket,  I  remembered.  To-day  I  had  not  even 
so  much.  I  was  bankrupt  in  hope  and  purpose.  Noth 
ing  had  gone  right;  nothing  would  ever  go  right; 
and,  worse,  I  did  not  care.  I  drummed  moodily  upon 
my  book.  Wasted!  Yes,  that  was  right.  My  life  was 
wasted,  utterly  wasted. 

A  voice  hailed  me  by  name,  and  Bob  sat  up  looking 
attentively  at  me  for  his  cue  as  to  the  treatment  of 
the  owner  of  it.  I  recognized  in  him  the  principal  of 
the  telegraph  school  where  I  had  gone  until  my  money 
gave  out.  He  seemed  suddenly  struck  by  something. 

"Why,  what  are  you  doing  here?"  he  asked.  I  told 
him  Bob  and  I  were  just  resting  after  a  day  of  can 
vassing. 

"Books!"  he  snorted.  "I  guess  they  won't  make  you 
rich.  Now,  how  would  you  like  to  be  a  reporter,  if  you 
have  got  nothing  better  to  do?  The  manager  of  a  news 
agency  down  town  asked  me  to-day  to  find  him  a  bright 
young  fellow  whom  he  could  break  in.  It  isn't  much  — 
$10  a  week  to  start  with.  But  it  is  better  than  peddling 
books,  I  know." 

He  poked  over  the  book  in  my  hand  and  read  the 
title.  "Hard  Times,"  he  said,  with  a  little  laugh,  "I 
guess  so.  What  do  you  say?  I  think  you  will  do. 
Better  come  along  and  let  me  give  you  a  note  to 
him  now." 

As  in  a  dream,  I  walked  across  the  street  with  him 
to  his  office  and  got  the  letter  which  was  to  make  me, 
half-starved  and  homeless,  rich  as  Croesus,  it  seemed  to 
me.  Bob  went  along,  and  before  I  departed  from  the 
school  a  better  home  than  I  could  give  him  was  found 


ENTERING   JOURNALISM  133 

for  him  with  my  benefactor.  I  was  to  bring  him  the 
next  day.  I  had  to  admit  that  it  was  best  so. 
That  night,  the  last  which  Bob  and  I  spent  together, 
we  walked  up  and  down  Broadway,  where  there  was 
quiet,  thinking  it  over.  What  had  happened  had 
stirred  me  profoundly.  For  the  second  time  I  saw  a 
hand  held  out  to  save  me  from  wreck  just  when  it 
seemed  inevitable;  and  I  knew  it  for  His  hand,  to 
whose  will  I  was  at  last  beginning  to  bow  in  humility 
that  had  been  a  stranger  to  me  before.  It  had  ever 
been  my  own  will,  my  own  way,  upon  which  I  insisted. 
In  the  shadow  of  Grace  Church  I  bowed  my  head  against 
the  granite  wall  of  the  gray  tower  and  prayed  for 
strength  to  do  the  work  which  I  had  so  long  and  ardu 
ously  sought  and  which  had  now  come  to  me;  the  while 
Bob  sat  and  looked  on,  saying  clearly  enough  with  his 
wagging  tail  that  he  did  not  know  what  was  going  on, 
but  that  he  was  sure  it  was  all  right.  Then  we  re 
sumed  our  wanderings.  One  thought,  and  only  one,  I 
had  room  for.  I  did  not  pursue  it;  it  walked  with  me 
wherever  I  went:  She  was  not  married  yet.  Not  yet. 
When  the  sun  rose,  I  washed  my  face  and  hands  in  a 
dog's  drinking-trough,  pulled  my  clothes  into  such  shape 
as  I  could,  and  went  with  Bob  to  his  new  home.  That 
parting  over,  I  walked  down  to  23  Park  Row  and  de 
livered  my  letter  to  the  desk  editor  in  the  New  York 
News  Association,  up  on  the  top  floor. 

He  looked  me  over  a  little  doubtfully,  but  evidently 
impressed  with  the  early  hours  I  kept,  told  me  that  I 
might  try.  He  waved  me  to  a  desk,  bidding  me  wait 
until  he  had  made  out  his  morning  book  of  assignments; 
and  with  such  scant  ceremony  was  I  finally  introduced 
to  Newspaper  Row,  that  had  been  to  me  like  an  en 
chanted  land.  After  twenty -seven  years  of  hard  work 
in  it,  during  which  I  have  been  behind  the  scenes  of 


i34  JACOB   A.    RIIS 

most  of  the  plays  that  go  to  make  up  the  sum  of  the 
life  of  the  metropolis,  it  exercises  the  old  spell  over  me 
yet.  If  my  sympathies  need  quickening,  my  point  of 
view  adjusting,  I  have  only  to  go  down  to  Park  Row 
at  eventide,  when  the  crowds  are  hurrying  homeward 
and  the  City  Hall  clock  is  lighted,  particularly  when 
the  snow  lies  on  the  grass  in  the  park,  and  stand 
watching  them  awhile,  to  find  all  things  coming  right. 
It  is  Bob  who  stands  by  and  watches  with  me  then,  as  on 
that  night. 

The  assignment  that  fell  to  my  lot  when  the  book  was 
made  out,  the  first  against  which  my  name  was  written 
in  a  New  York  editor's  books,  was  a  lunch  of  some  sort 
at  the  Astor  House.  I  have  forgotten  what  was  the 
special  occasion.  I  remember  the  bearskin  hats  of  the 
Old  Guard  in  it,  but  little  else.  In  a  kind  of  haze,  I 
beheld  half  the  savory  viands  of  earth  spread  under  the 
eyes  and  nostrils  of  a  man  who  had  not  tasted  food 
for  the  third  day.  I  did  not  ask  for  any.  I  had  reached 
that  stage  of  starvation  that  is  like  the  still  centre  of  a 
cyclone,  when  no  hunger  is  felt.  But  it  may  be  that 
a  touch  of  it  all  crept  into  my  report;  for  when  the  edi 
tor  had  read  it,  he  said  briefly:  — 

"You  will  do.  Take  that  desk,  and  report  at  ten 
every  morning,  sharp." 

That  night,  when  I  was  dismissed  from  the  office,  I 
went  up  the  Bowery  to  No.  185,  where  a  Danish  family 
kept  a  boarding-house  up  under  the  roof.  I  had  work 
and  wages  now,  and  could  pay.  On  the  stairs  I  fell  in 
a  swoon  and  lay  there  till  some  one  stumbled  over  me 
in  the  dark  and  carried  me  in.  My  strength  had  at  last 
given  out. 

So  began  my  life  as  a  newspaper  man. 


BOUND  COASTWISE1 
RALPH  D.  PAINE 

One  thinks  of  the  old  merchant  marine  in  terms  of 
the  clipper  ship  and  distant  ports.  The  coasting  trade 
has  been  overlooked  in  song  and  story;  yet,  since  the 
year  1859,  its  fleets  have  always  been  larger  and  more 
important  than  the  American  deep-water  commerce  nor 
have  decay  and  misfortune  overtaken  them.  It  is  a 
traffic  which  flourished  from  the  beginning,  ingeniously 
adapting  itself  to  new  conditions,  unchecked  by  war,  and 
surviving  with  splendid  vigor,  under  steam  and  sail, 
in  this  modern  era. 

The  seafaring  pioneers  won  their  way  from  port  to 
port  of  the  tempestuous  Atlantic  coast  in  tiny  ketches, 
sloops,  and  shallops  when  the  voyage  of  five  hundred 
miles  from  New  England  to  Virginia  was  a  prolonged 
and  hazardous  adventure.  Fog  and  shoals  and  lee  shores 
beset  these  coastwise  sailors,  and  shipwrecks  were  piti 
fully  frequent.  In  no  Hall  of  Fame  will  you  find  the 
name  of  Captain  Andrew  Robinson  of  Gloucester,  but  he 
was  nevertheless  an  illustrious  benefactor  and  deserves 
a  place  among  the  most  useful  Americans.  His  inven 
tion  was  the  Yankee  schooner  of  fore-and-aft  rig,  and  he 
gave  to  this  type  of  vessel  its  name.2  Seaworthy,  fast, 

1  From  The  Old  Merchant  Marine,  by  Ralph  D.  Paine,  in  The 
Chronicles  of  America  Series.    Copyright,  1919,  by  the  Yale  Uni 
versity  Press.    By  permission  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers. 

2  It  is  said  that  as  the  odd  two-master  slid  gracefully  into  the 
water,   a  spectator  exclaimed:    "See   how   she   scoons!"    "Aye," 
answered    Captain    Robinson,    "a    schooner    let    her    be!"    This 
launching  took  place  in  1713  or  1714.     [Author's  note.] 

135 


136  RALPH   D.   PAINE 

and  easily  handled,  adapted  for  use  in  the  early  eight 
eenth  century  when  inland  transportation  was  almost 
impossible,  the  schooner  carried  on  trade  between  the 
colonies  and  was  an  important  factor  in  the  growth  of 
the  fisheries. 

Before  the  Revolution  the  first  New  England  schoon 
ers  were  beating  up  to  the  Grand  Bank  of  Newfoundland 
after  cod  and  halibut.  They  were  of  no  more  than 
fifty  tons'  burden,  too  small  for  their  task  but  manned 
by  fishermen  of  surpassing  hardihood.  Marblehead  was 
then  the  foremost  fishing  port  with  two  hundred  brigs 
and  schooners  on  the  offshore  banks.  But  to  Gloucester 
belongs  the  glory  of  sending  the  first  schooner  to  the 
Grand  Bank.  From  these  two  rock-bound  harbors  went 
thousands  of  trained  seamen  to  man  the  privateers  and 
the  ships  of  the  Continental  navy,  slinging  their  ham 
mocks  on  the  gun-decks  beside  the  whalemen  of  Nan- 
tucket.  These  fishermen  and  coastwise  sailors  fought 
on  the  land  as  well  and  followed  the  drums  of  Washing 
ton's  armies  until  the  final  scene  at  Yorktown.  Glou 
cester  and  Marblehead  were  filled  with  widows  and 
orphans,  and  half  their  men-folk  were  dead  or  missing. 

The  fishing-trade  soon  prospered  again,  and  the  men 
of  the  old  ports  tenaciously  clung  to  the  sea  even  when 
the  great  migration  flowed  westward  to  people  the  wilder 
ness  and  found  a  new  American  empire.  They  were 
fishermen  from  father  to  son,  bound  together  in  an 
intimate  community  of  interests,  a  race  of  pure  native 
or  English  stock,  deserving  this  tribute  which  was  paid 
to  them  in  Congress:  "Every  person  on  board  our  fish 
ing  vessels  has  an  interest  in  common  with  his  associates; 
their  reward  depends  upon  their  industry  and  enter 
prise.  Much  caution  is  observed  in  the  selection  of  the 
crews  of  our  fishing  vessels;  it  often  happens  that  every 
individual  is  connected  by  blood  and  the  strongest  ties 


BOUND    COASTWISE  137 

of  friendship;  our  fishermen  are  remarkable  for  their 
sobriety  and  good  conduct,  and  they  rank  with  the  most 
skillful  navigators." 

Fishing  and  the  coastwise  merchant  trade  were  closely 
linked.  Schooners  loaded  dried  cod  as  well  as  lumber 
for  southern  ports  and  carried  back  naval  stores  and 
other  southern  products.  Well-to-do  fishermen  owned 
trading  vessels  and  sent  out  their  ventures,  the  sailors 
shifting  from  one  forecastle  to  the  other.  With  a  taste 
for  an  easier  life  than  the  stormy,  freezing  Banks,  the 
young  Gloucester-man  would  sign  on  for  a  voyage  to 
Pernambuco  or  Havana  and  so  be  fired  with  ambition  to 
become  a  mate  or  master  and  take  to  deep  water  after 
a  while.  In  this  way  was  maintained  a  school  of  sea 
manship  which  furnished  the  most  intelligent  and  effi 
cient  officers  of  the  merchant  marine.  For  generations 
they  were  mostly  recruited  from  the  old  fishing  and 
shipping  ports  of  New  England  until  the  term  "Yankee 
shipmaster"  had  a  meaning  peculiarly  its  own. 

Seafaring  has  undergone  so  many  revolutionary 
changes  and  old  days  and  ways  are  so  nearly  obliterated 
that  it  is  singular  to  find  the  sailing  vessel  still  em 
ployed  in  great  numbers,  even  though  the  gasolene 
motor  is  being  installed  to  kick  her  along  in  spells  of 
calm  weather.  The  Gloucester  fishing  schooner,  per 
fect  of  her  type,  stanch,  fleet,  and  powerful,  still  drives 
homeward  from  the  Banks  under  a  tall  press  of  canvas, 
and  her  crew  still  divide  the  earnings,  share  and  share, 
as  did  their  forefathers  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 
But  the  old  New  England  strain  of  blood  no  longer  pre 
dominates,  and  Portuguese,  Scandinavians,  and  Nova 
Scotia  "Blue-noses"  bunk  with  the  lads  of  Gloucester 
stock.  Yet  they  are  alike  for  courage,  hardihood,  and 
mastery  of  the  sea,  and  the  traditions  of  the  calling  are 
undimmed. 


i38  RALPH    D.    PAINE 

There  was  a  time  before  the  Civil  War  when  Con 
gress  jealously  protected  the  fisheries  by  means  of  a 
bounty  system  and  legislation  aimed  against  our  Cana 
dian  neighbors.  The  fishing  fleets  were  regarded  as  a 
source  of  national  wealth  and  the  nursery  of  prime 
seamen  for  the  navy  and  merchant  marine.  In  1858 
the  bounty  system  was  abandoned,  however,  and  the  fisher 
men  were  left  to  shift  for  themselves,  earning  small  profits 
at  peril  of  their  lives  and  preferring  to  follow  the  sea 
because  they  knew  no  other  profession.  In  spite  of 
this  loss  of  assistance  from  the  Government,  the  ton 
nage  engaged  in  deep-sea  fisheries  was  never  so  great 
as  in  the  second  year  of  the  Civil  War.  Four  years 
later  the  industry  had  shrunk  one-half;  and  it  has  never 
recovered  its  early  importance. 1 

The  coastwise  merchant  trade,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
been  jealously  guarded  against  competition  and  other 
wise  fostered  ever  since  1789,  when  the  first  discrimina 
tory  tonnage  tax  was  enforced.  The  Embargo  Act  of 
1808  prohibited  domestic  commerce  to  foreign  flags,  and 
this  edict  was  renewed  in  the  American  Navigation  Act 
of  1817.  It  remained  a  firmly  established  doctrine  of 
maritime  policy  until  the  Great  War  compelled  its  sus 
pension  as  an  emergency  measure.  The  theories  of  pro 
tection  and  free  trade  have  been  bitterly  debated  for 
generations,  but  in  this  instance  the  practice  was  emi 
nently  successful  and  the  results  were  vastly  impressive. 
Deep-water  shipping  dwindled  and  died,  but  the  increase 
in  coastwise  sailing  was  consistent.  It  rose  to  five  mil 
lion  tons  early  in  this  century  and  makes  the  United 
States  still  one  of  the  foremost  maritime  powers  in  re 
spect  to  salt-water  activity. 

To  speak  of  this  deep-water  shipping  as  trade  coast- 

1  In  1862,  the  tonnage  amounted  to  193459;  in  1866,  to 
89,386.  [Author's  note.] 


BOUND   COASTWISE  139 

wise  is  misleading,  in  a  way.  The  words  convey  an 
impression  of  dodging  from  port  to  port  for  short  dis 
tances,  whereas  many  of  the  voyages  are  longer  than 
those  of  the  foreign  routes  in  European  waters.  It  is 
farther  by  sea  from  Boston  to  Philadelphia  than  from 
Plymouth,  England,  to  Bordeaux.  A  schooner  making 
the  run  from  Portland  to  Savannah  lays  more  knots  over 
her  stern  than  a  tramp  bound  out  from  England  to 
Lisbon.  It  is  a  shorter  voyage  from  Cardiff  to  Algiers 
than  an  American  skipper  pricks  off  on  his  chart  when 
he  takes  his  steamer  from  New  York  to  New  Orleans  or 
Galveston.  This  coastwise  trade  may  lack  the  romance 
of  the  old  school  of  the  square-rigged  ship  in  the  Roaring 
Forties,  but  it  has  always  been  the  more  perilous  and 
exacting.  Its  seamen  suffer  hardships  unknown  else 
where,  for  they  have  to  endure  winters  of  intense  cold 
and  heavy  gales  and  they  are  always  in  risk  of  stranding 
or  being  driven  ashore. 

The  story  of  these  hardy  men  is  interwoven,  for  the 
most  part,  with  the  development  of  the  schooner  in  size 
and  power.  This  graceful  craft,  so  peculiar  to  its  own 
coast  and  people,  was  built  for  utility  and  possessed  a 
simple  beauty  of  its  own  when  under  full  sail.  The 
schooners  were  at  first  very  small  because  it  was  believed 
that  large  fore-and-aft  sails  could  not  be  handled  with 
safety.  They  were  difficult  to  reef  or  lower  in  a  blow 
until  it  was  discovered  that  three  masts  instead  of  two 
made  the  task  much  easier.  For  many  years  the  three- 
masted  schooner  was  the  most  popular  kind  of  American 
merchant  vessel.  They  clustered  in  every  Atlantic  port 
and  were  built  in  the  yards  of  New  England,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Virginia  —  built  by  the  mile,  as  the 
saying  was,  and  sawed  off  in  lengths  to  suit  the  owners' 
pleasure.  They  carried  the  coal,  ice,  lumber  of  the 
whole  sea-board  and  were  so  economical  of  man-power 


i4o  RALPH    D.   PAINE 

that  they  earned  dividends  where  steamers  or  square- 
rigged  ships  would  not  have  paid  for  themselves. 

As  soon  as  a  small  steam-engine  was  employed  to  hoist 
the  sails,  it  became  possible  to  launch  much  larger 
schooners  and  to  operate  them  at  a  marvelously  low 
cost.  Rapidly  the  four-master  gained  favor,  and  then 
came  the  five-  and  six-masted  vessels,  gigantic  ships  of 
their  kind.  Instead  of  the  hundred-ton  schooner  of  a 
century  ago,  Hampton  Roads  and  Boston  Harbor  saw 
these  great  cargo  carriers  which  could  stow  under  hatches 
four  and  five  thousand  tons  of  coal,  and  whose  masts 
soared  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  deck.  Square- 
rigged  ships  of  the  same  capacity  would  have  required 
crews  of  a  hundred  men,  but  these  schooners  were  com 
fortably  handled  by  a  company  of  fifteen  all  told,  only 
ten  of  whom  were  in  the  forecastle.  There  was  no  need 
of  sweating  and  hauling  at  braces  and  halliards.  The 
steam- winch  undertook  all  this  toil.  The  tremendous 
sails,  stretching  a  hundred  feet  from  boom  to  gaff  could 
not  have  been  managed  otherwise.  Even  for  trimming 
sheets  or  setting  topsails,  it  was  necessary  merely  to  take 
a  turn  or  two  around  the  drum  of  the  winch  engine  and 
turn  the  steam  valve.  The  big  schooner  was  the  last 
word  in  cheap,  efficient  transportation  by  water.  In 
her  own  sphere  of  activity  she  was  as  notable  an  achieve 
ment  as  the  Western  Ocean  packet  or  the  Cape  Horn 
clipper. 

The  masters  who  sailed  these  extraordinary  vessels 
also  changed  and  had  to  learn  a  new  kind  of  seaman 
ship.  They  must  be  very  competent  men,  for  the  tests 
of  their  skill  and  readiness  were  really  greater  than  those 
demanded  of  the  deep-water  skipper.  They  drove  these 
great  schooners  alongshore  winter  and  summer,  across 
Nantucket  Shoals  and  around  Cape  Cod,  and  their  sal 
vation  depended  on  shortening  sail  ahead  of  the  gale. 


BOUND   COASTWISE  141 

Let  the  wind  once  blow  and  the  sea  get  up,  and  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  strip  the  canvas  off  an  unwieldy 
six-master.  The  captain's  chief  fear  was  of  being  blown 
offshore,  of  having  his  vessel  run  away  with  him!  Un 
like  the  deep-water  man,  he  preferred  running  in 
toward  the  beach  and  letting  go  his  anchors.  There  he 
would  ride  out  the  storm  and  hoist  sail  when  the  weather 
moderated. 

These  were  American  shipmasters  of  the  old  breed, 
raised  in  schooners  as  a  rule,  and  adapting  themselves 
to  modern  conditions.  They  sailed  for  nominal  wages 
and  primage,  or  five  per  cent  of  the  gross  freight  paid 
the  vessel.  Before  the  Great  War  in  Europe,  freights 
were  low  and  the  schooner  skippers  earned  scanty  in 
comes.  Then  came  a  world  shortage  of  tonnage  and 
immediately  coastwise  freights  soared  skyward.  The 
big  schooners  of  the  Palmer  fleet  began  to  reap  fabulous 
dividends  and  their  masters  shared  in  the  unexpected 
opulence.  Besides  their  primage  they  owned  shares  in 
their  vessels,  a  thirty-second  or  so,  and  presently  their 
settlement  at  the  end  of  a  voyage  coastwise  amounted 
to  an  income  of  a  thousand  dollars  a  month.  They 
earned  this  money,  and  the  managing  owners  cheerfully 
paid  them,  for  there  had  been  lean  years  and  uncomplain 
ing  service  and  the  sailor  had  proved  himself  worthy  of 
his  hire.  So  tempting  was  the  foreign  war  trade,  that 
a  fleet  of  them  was  sent  across  the  Atlantic  until  the 
American  Government  barred  them  from  the  war  zone  as 
too  easy  a  prey  for  submarine  attack.  They  therefore 
returned  to  the  old  coastwise  route  or  loaded  for  South 
American  ports  —  singularly  interesting  ships  because 
they  were  the  last  bold  venture  of  the  old  American 
maritime  spirit,  a  challenge  to  the  Age  of  Steam. 

No  more  of  these  huge,  towering  schooners  have  been 
built  in  the  last  dozen  years.  Steam  colliers  and  barges 


142  RALPH    D.    PAINE 

have  won  the  fight  because  time  is  now  more  valuable 
than  cheapness  of  transportation.  The  schooner  might 
bowl  down  to  Norfolk  from  Boston  or  Portland  in  four 
days  and  be  threshing  about  for  two  weeks  in  head  winds 
on  the  return  voyage. 

The  small  schooner  appeared  to  be  doomed  somewhat 
earlier.  She  had  ceased  to  be  profitable  in  competition 
with  the  larger,  more  modern  fore-and-after,  but  these 
battered,  veteran  craft  died  hard.  They  harked  back 
to  a  simpler  age,  to  the  era  of  the  stage-coach  and  the 
spinning-wheel,  to  the  little  shipyards  that  were  to  be 
found  on  every  bay  and  inlet  of  New  England.  They 
were  still  owned  and  sailed  by  men  who  ashore  were 
friends  and  neighbors.  Even  now  you  may  find  during 
your  summer  wanderings  some  stumpy,  weather-worn 
two-master  running  on  for  shelter  overnight,  which  has 
plied  up  and  down  the  coast  for  fifty  or  sixty  years,  now 
leaking  like  a  basket  and  too  frail  for  winter  voyages. 
It  was  in  a  craft  very  much  like  this  that  your  rude 
ancestors  went  privateering  against  the  British.  Indeed, 
the  little  schooner  Polly,  which  fought  briskly  in  the 
War  of  1812,  is  still  afloat  and  loading  cargoes  in  New 
England  ports. 

These  little  coasters,  surviving  long  after  the  stately 
merchant  marine  had  vanished  from  blue  water,  have 
enjoyed  a  slant  of  favoring  fortune  in  recent  years. 
They,  too,  have  been  in  demand,  and  once  again  there 
is  money  to  spare  for  paint  and  cordage  and  calking. 
They  have  been  granted  a  new  lease  of  life  and  may  be 
found  moored  at  the  wharfs,  beached  on  the  marine 
railways,  or  anchored  in  the  stream,  eagerly  awaiting 
their  turn  to  refit.  It  is  a  matter  of  vital  concern  that 
the  freight  on  spruce  boards  from  Bangor  to  New  York 
has  increased  to  five  dollars  a  thousand  feet.  Many  of 
these  craft  belong  to  grandfatherly  skippers  who  dared 


BOUND    COASTWISE  143 

not  venture  past  Cape  Cod  in  December,  lest  the  vener 
able  Matilda  Emerson  or  the  valetudinarian  Joshua  R. 
Coggswell  should  open  up  and  founder  in  a  blow. 
During  the  winter  storms  these  skippers  used  to  hug  the 
kitchen  stove  in  bleak  farmhouses  until  spring  came 
and  they  could  put  to  sea  again.  The  rigor  of  circum 
stances,  however,  forced  others  to  seek  for  trade  the 
whole  year  through.  In  a  recent  winter  fifty-seven 
schooners  were  lost  on  the  New  England  coast,  most 
of  which  were  unfit  for  anything  but  summer  breezes. 
As  by  a  miracle,  others  have  been  able  to  renew  their 
youth,  to  replace  spongy  planking  and  rotten  stems,  and 
to  deck  themselves  out  in  white  canvas  and  fresh  paint! 

The  captains  of  these  craft  foregather  in  the  ship- 
chandler's  shops,  where  the  floor  is  strewn  with  sawdust, 
the  armchairs  are  capacious,  and  the  environment  har 
monizes  with  the  tales  that  are  told.  It  is  an  informal 
club  of  coastwise  skippers  and  the  old  energy  begins 
to  show  itself  once  more.  They  move  with  a  brisker 
gait  than  when  times  were  so  hard  and  they  went  begging 
for  charters  at  any  terms.  A  sinewy  patriarch  stumps 
to  a  window,  flourishes  his  arm  at  an  ancient  two-master, 
and  booms  out: 

"That  vessel  of  mine  is  as  sound  as  a  nut,  I  tell  ye. 
She  ain't  as  big  as  some,  but  I'd  like  nothin'  better  than 
the  sun  clouded  over.  Expect  to  navigate  to  Africy 
same  as  the  Horace  M.  Bickford  that  cleared  t'other  day, 
stocked  for  sixty  thousand  dollars." 

"Huh,  you'd  get  lost  out  o'  sight  of  land,  John,"  is 
the  cruel  retort,  "and  that  old  shoe-box  of  yours  'ud  be 
scared  to  death  without  a  harbor  to  run  into  every  time 
the  sun  clouded  over.  Expect  to  navigate  to  Africy 
with  an  alarm-clock  and  a  soundin'-lead,  I  presume." 

"Mebbe  I'd  better  let  well  enough  alone,"  replies  the 
old  man.  "Africy  don't  seem  as  neighborly  as  Phipps- 


144  RALPH   D.   PAINE 

burg  and  Machiasport.  I'll  chance  it  as  far  as  Phila- 
delphy  next  voyage  and  I  guess  the  old  woman  can  buy 
a  new  dress." 

The  activity  and  the  reawakening  of  the  old  ship 
yards,  their  slips  all  filled  with  the  frames  of  wooden 
vessels  for  the  foreign  trade,  is  like  a  revival  of  the 
old  merchant  marine,  a  reincarnation  of  ghostly  mem 
ories.  In  mellowed  dignity  the  square  white  houses 
beneath  the  New  England  elms  recall  to  mind  the 
mariners  who  dwell  therein.  It  seems  as  if  their 
shipyards  also  belonged  to  the  past;  but  the  summer 
visitor  finds  a  fresh  attraction  in  watching  the  new 
schooners  rise  from  the  stocks,  and  the  gay  pageant  of 
launching  them,  every  mast  ablaze  with  bunting,  draws 
crowds  to  the  water-front.  And  as  a  business  venture, 
with  somewhat  of  the  tang  of  old-fashioned  romance, 
the  casual  stranger  is  now  and  then  tempted  to  pur 
chase  a  sixty-fourth  "piece"  of  a  splendid  Yankee  four- 
master  and  keep  in  touch  with  its  roving  fortunes.  The 
shipping  reports  of  the  daily  newspaper  prove  more 
fascinating  than  the  ticker  tape,  and  the  tidings  of  a 
successful  voyage  thrill  one  with  a  sense  of  personal 
gratification.  For  the  sea  has  not  lost  its  magic  and 
its  mystery,  and  those  who  go  down  to  it  in  ships  must 
still  battle  against  elemental  odds  —  still  carry  on  the 
noble  and  enduring  traditions  of  the  Old  Merchant 
Marine. 


THE  DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  THE 
AUTOMOBILE  * 

BURTON  J.  HENDRICK 

In  many  manufacturing  lines,  American  genius  for 
organization  and  large  scale  production  has  developed 
mammoth  industries.  In  nearly  all  the  tendency  to 
combination  and  concentration  has  exercised  a  pre 
dominating  influence.  In  the  early  years  of  the  twen 
tieth  century  the  public  realized,  for  the  first  time,  that 
one  corporation,  the  American  Sugar  Refining  Company, 
controlled  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the  business  of  re 
fining  sugar.  Six  large  interests  —  Armour,  Swift,  Mor 
ris,  the  National  Packing  Company,  Cudahy,  and 
Schwarzschild  and  Sulzberger  —  had  so  concentrated  the 
packing  business  that,  by  1905,  they  slaughtered  prac 
tically  all  the  cattle  shipped  to  Western  centers  and 
furnished  most  of  the  beef  consumed  in  the  large  cities 
east  of  Pittsburgh.  The  "Tobacco  Trust"  had  largely 
monopolized  both  the  wholesale  and  retail  trade  in  this 
article  of  luxury  and  had  also  made  extensive  inroads 
into  the  English  market.  The  textile  industry  had  not 
only  transformed  great  centers  of  New  England  into  an 
American  Lancashire,  but  the  Southern  States,  recovering 
from  the  demoralization  of  the  Civil  War,  had  begun  to 
spin  their  own  cotton  and  to  send  the  finished  product 

1  From  The  Age  of  Big  Business,  by  Burton  J.  Hendrick,  in 
The  Chronicles  of  America  Series.  Copyright,  1919,  by  the  Yale 
University  Press.  By  permission  of  the  author  and  of  the 
publishers. 

145 


146  BURTON    J.    HENDRICK 

to  all  parts  of  the  world.  American  shoe  manufacturers 
had  developed  their  art  to  a  point  where  "American 
shoes"  had  acquired  a  distinctive  standing  in  practically 
every  European  country. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  describe  in  detail  each  of 
these  industries.  In  their  broad  outlines  they  merely 
repeat  the  story  of  steel,  of  oil,  of  agricultural  machinery; 
they  are  the  product  of  the  same  methods,  the  same 
initiative.  There  is  one  branch  of  American  manu 
facture,  however,  that  merits  more  detailed  attention. 
If  we  scan  the  manufacturing  statistics  of  1917,  one 
amazing  fact  stares  us  in  the  face.  There  are  only  three 
American  industries  whose  product  has  attained  the  bil 
lion  mark;  one  of  these  is  steel,  the  other  food  products, 
while  the  third  is  an  industry  that  was  practically  un 
known  in  the  United  States  fifteen  years  ago.  Super 
latives  come  naturally  to  mind  in  discussing  American 
progress,  but  hardly  any  extravagant  phrases  could  do 
justice  to  the  development  of  American  automobiles. 
In  1902  the  United  States  produced  3700  motor  vehicles; 
in  1916  we  made  1,500,000.  The  man  who  now  makes 
a  personal  profit  of  not  far  from  $50,000,000  a  year  in 
this  industry  was  a  puttering  mechanic  when  the  twenti 
eth  century  came  in.  If  we  capitalized  Henry  Ford's 
income,  he  is  probably  a  richer  man  than  Rockefeller; 
yet,  as  recently  as  1905  his  possessions  consisted  of  a 
little  shed  of  a  factory  which  employed  a  dozen  workmen. 
Dazzling  as  is  this  personal  success,  its  really  important 
aspects  are  the  things  for  which  it  stands.  The  Ameri 
can  automobile  has  had  its  wild-cat  days;  for  the  larger 
part,  however,  its  leaders  have  paid  little  attention  to 
Wall  Street,  but  have  limited  their  activities  exclusively 
to  manufacturing.  Moreover,  the  automobile  illustrates 
more  completely  than  any  other  industry  the  technical 
qualities  that  so  largely  explain  our  industrial  progress. 


DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE  147 

Above  all,  American  manufacturing  has  developed  three 
characteristics.  These  are  quantity  production,  stand 
ardization,  and  the  use  of  labor-saving  machinery.  It 
is  because  Ford  and  other  manufacturers  adapted  these 
principles  to  making  the  automobile  that  the  American 
motor  industry  has  reached  such  gigantic  proportions. 

A  few  years  ago  an  English  manufacturer,  seeking  the 
explanation  of  America's  ability  to  produce  an  excellent 
car  so  cheaply,  made  an  interesting  experiment.  He 
obtained  three  American  automobiles,  all  of  the  same 
"standardized"  make,  and  gave  them  a  long  and  racking 
tour  over  English  highways.  Workmen  then  took  apart 
the  three  cars  and  threw  the  disjointed  remains  into  a 
promiscuous  heap.  Every  bolt,  bar,  gas  tank,  motor, 
wheel,  and  tire  was  taken  from  its  accustomed  place  and 
piled  up,  a  hideous  mass  of  rubbish.  Workmen  then 
painstakingly  put  together  three  cars  from  these  dis 
ordered  elements.  Three  chauffeurs  jumped  on  these 
cars,  and  they  immediately  started  down  the  road  and 
made  a  long  journey  just  as  acceptably  as  before.  The 
Englishman  had  learned  the  secret  of  American  success 
with  automobiles.  The  one  word  "standardization"  ex 
plained  the  mystery. 

Yet  when,  a  few  years  before,  the  English  referred 
to  the  American  automobile  as  a  "glorified  perambu 
lator,"  the  characterization  was  not  unjust.  This  new 
method  of  transportation  was  slow  in  finding  favor  on 
our  side  of  the  Atlantic.  America  was  sentimentally  and 
practically  devoted  to  the  horse  as  the  motive  power  for 
vehicles;  and  the  fact  that  we  had  so  few  good  roads 
also  worked  against  the  introduction  of  the  automobile. 
Yet  here,  as  in  Europe,  the  mechanically  propelled 
wagon  made  its  appearance  in  early  times.  This  vehicle, 
like  the  bicycle,  is  not  essentially  a  modern  invention; 
the  reason  any  one  can  manufacture  it  is  that  practically 


148  BURTON    J.    HENDRICK 

all  the  basic  ideas  antedate  1840.  Indeed,  the  auto 
mobile  is  really  older  than  the  railroad.  In  the  twenties 
and  thirties,  steam  stage  coaches  made  regular  trips 
between  certain  cities  in  England  and  occasionally  a 
much  resounding  power-driven  carriage  would  come 
careering  through  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  scaring 
all  the  horses  and  precipitating  the  intervention  of  the 
authorities.  The  hardy  spirits  who  devised  these  en 
gines,  all  of  whose  names  are  recorded  in  the  encyclo 
pedias,  deservedly  rank  as  the  "fathers"  of  the  auto 
mobile.  The  responsibility  as  the  actual  "inventor"  can 
probably  be  no  more  definitely  placed.  However,  had 
it  not  been  for  two  developments,  neither  of  them  imme 
diately  related  to  the  motor  car,  we  should  never  have 
had  this  efficient  method  of  transportation.  The  real 
"fathers"  of  the  automobile  are  Gottlieb  Daimler,  the 
German  who  made  the  first  successful  gasoline  engine, 
and  Charles  Goodyear,  the  American  who  discovered  the 
secret  of  vulcanized  rubber.  Without  this  engine  to  form 
the  motive  power  and  the  pneumatic  tire  to  give  it  four 
air  cushions  to  run  on,  the  automobile  would  never 
have  progressed  beyond  the  steam  carriage  stage.  It 
is  true  that  Charles  Baldwin  Selden,  of  Rochester,  has 
been  pictured  as  the  "inventor  of  the  modern  auto 
mobile"  because,  as  long  ago  as  1879,  he  applied  for  a 
patent  on  the  idea  of  using  a  gasoline  engine  as  motive 
power,  securing  this  basic  patent  in  1895,  but  this,  it 
must  be  admitted,  forms  a  flimsy  basis  for  such  a  pre 
tentious  claim. 

The  French  apparently  led  all  nations  in  the  manu 
facture  of  motor  vehicles,  and  in  the  early  nineties  their 
products  began  to  make  occasional  appearances  on 
American  roads.  The  type  of  American  who  owned  this 
imported  machine  was  the  same  that  owned  steam  yachts 
and  a  box  at  the  opera.  Hardly  any  new  development 


DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE  149 

fcas  aroused  greater  hostility.  It  not  only  frightened 
horses,  and  so  disturbed  the  popular  traffic  of  the  time, 
but  its  speed,  its  glamour,  its  arrogance,  and  the  haughty 
behavior  of  its  proprietor,  had  apparently  transformed 
it  into  a  new  badge  of  social  cleavage.  It  thus  imme 
diately  took  its  place  as  a  new  gewgaw  of  the  rich; 
that  it  had  any  other  purpose  to  serve  had  occurred  to 
few  people.  Yet  the  French  and  English  machines 
created  an  entirely  different  reaction  in  the  mind  of  an 
imaginative  mechanic  in  Detroit.  Probably  American 
annals  contain  no  finer  story  than  that  of  this  simple 
American  workman.  Yet  from  the  beginning  it  seemed 
inevitable  that  Henry  Ford  should  play  this  appointed 
part  in  the  world.  Born  in  Michigan  in  1863,  the  son 
of  an  English  farmer  who  had  emigrated  to  Michigan 
and  a  Dutch  mother,  Ford  had  always  demonstrated  an 
interest  in  things  far  removed  from  his  farm.  Only 
mechanical  devices  interested  him.  He  liked  getting 
in  the  crops,  because  McCormick  harvesters  did  most 
of  the  work;  it  was  only  the  machinery  of  the  dairy 
that  held  him  enthralled.  He  developed  destructive  ten 
dencies  as  a  boy;  he  had  to  take  everything  to  pieces. 
He  horrified  a  rich  playmate  by  resolving  his  new  watch 
into  its  component  parts  —  and  promptly  quieted  him 
by  putting  it  together  again.  "Every  clock  in  the  house 
shuddered  when  it  saw  me  coming,"  he  recently  said. 
He  constructed  a  small  working  forge  in  his  school-yard, 
and  built  a  small  steam  engine  that  could  make  ten 
miles  an  hour.  He  spent  his  winter  evenings  reading 
mechanical  and  scientific  journals;  he  cared  little  for 
general  literature,  but  machinery  in  any  form  was  almost 
a  pathological  obsession.  Some  boys  run  away  from  the 
farm  to  join  the  circus  or  to  go  to  sea;  Henry  Ford  at 
the  age  of  sixteen  ran  away  to  get  a  job  in  a  machine 
shop.  Here  one  anomaly  immediately  impressed  him. 


150  BURTON   J.   HENDRICK 

No  two  machines  were  made  exactly  alike;  each  was 
regarded  as  a  separate  job.  With  his  savings  from  his 
weekly  wage  of  $2.50,  young  Ford  purchased  a  three 
dollar  watch,  and  immediately  dissected  it.  If  several 
thousand  of  these  watches  could  be  made,  each  one 
exactly  alike,  they  would  cost  only  thirty-seven  cents 
apiece.  "Then,"  said  Ford  to  himself,  "everybody  could 
have  one."  He  had  fairly  elaborated  his  plans  to  start 
a  factory  on  this  basis  when  his  father's  illness  called 
him  back  to  the  farm. 

This  was  about  1880.  Ford's  next  conspicuous  ap 
pearance  in  Detroit  was  about  1892.  This  appearance 
was  not  only  conspicuous;  it  was  exceedingly  noisy. 
Detroit  now  knew  him  as  the  pilot  of  a  queer  affair  that 
whirled  and  lurched  through  her  thoroughfares,  making 
as  much  disturbance  as  a  freight  train.  In  reading  his 
technical  journals  Ford  had  met  many  descriptions  of 
horseless  carriages;  the  consequence  was  that  he  had 
again  broken  away  from  the  farm,  taken  a  job  at  $45 
a  month  in  a  Detroit  machine  shop,  and  devoted  his 
evenings  to  the  production  of  a  gasoline  engine.  His 
young  wife  was  exceedingly  concerned  about  his  health; 
the  neighbors'  snap  judgment  was  that  he  was  insane. 
Only  two  other  Americans,  Charles  B.  Duryea  and  Ell- 
wood  Haynes,  were  attempting  to  construct  an  auto 
mobile  at  that  time.  Long  before  Ford  was  ready  with 
his  machine,  others  had  begun  to  appear.  Duryea 
turned  out  his  first  one  in  1892;  and  foreign  makes 
began  to  appear  in  considerable  numbers.  But  the 
Detroit  mechanic  had  a  more  comprehensive  inspiration. 
He  was  not  working  to  make  one  of  the  finely  upholstered 
and  beautifully  painted  vehicles  that  came  from  overseas. 
"Anything  that  isn't  good  for  everybody  is  no  good  at 
all,"  he  said.  Precisely  as  it  was  Vail's  ambition  to 
make  every  American  a  user  of  the  telephone  and 


DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE  151 

McCormick's  to  make  every  farmer  a  user  of  his  har 
vester,  so  it  was  Ford's  determination  that  every  family 
should  have  an  automobile.  He  was  apparently  the  only 
man  in  those  times  who  saw  that  this  new  machine  was 
not  primarily  a  luxury  but  a  convenience.  Yet  all  manu 
facturers,  here  and  in  Europe,  laughed  at  his  idea.  Why 
not  give  every  poor  man  a  Fifth  Avenue  house?  French 
men  and  Englishmen  scouted  the  idea  that  any  one 
could  make  a  cheap  automobile.  Its  machinery  was 
particularly  refined  and  called  for  the  highest  grade  of 
steel;  the  clever  Americans  might  use  their  labor-saving 
devices  on  many  products,  but  only  skillful  hand  work 
could  turn  out  a  motor  car.  European  manufacturers 
regarded  each  car  as  a  separate  problem ;  they  individual 
ized  its  manufacture  almost  as  scrupulously  as  a  painter 
paints  his  portrait  or  a  poet  writes  his  poem.  The  re 
sult  was  that  only  a  man  with  several  thousand  dollars 
could  purchase  one.  But  Henry  Ford  —  and  afterward 
other  American  makers  —  had  quite  a  different  concep 
tion. 

Henry  Ford's  earliest  banker  was  the  proprietor  of  a 
quick-lunch  wagon  at  which  the  inventor  used  to  eat 
his  midnight  meal  after  his  hard  evening's  work  in  the 
shed.  "Coffee  Jim,"  to  whom  Ford  confided  his  hopes 
and  aspirations  on  these  occasions,  was  the  only  man 
with  available  cash  who  had  any  faith  in  his  ideas.  Capi 
tal  in  more  substantial  form,  however,  came  in  about 
1902.  With  money  advanced  by  "Coffee  Jim,"  Ford  had 
built  a  machine  which  he  entered  in  the  Grosse  Point 
races  that  year.  It  was  a  hideous-looking  affair,  but 
it  ran  like  the  wind  and  outdistanced  all  competitors. 
From  that  day  Ford's  career  has  been  an  uninterrupted 
triumph.  But  he  rejected  the  earliest  offers  of  capital 
because  the  millionaires  would  not  agree  to  his  terms. 
They  were  looking  for  high  prices  and  quick  profits,  while 


1 52  BURTON   J.   HENDRICK 

Ford's  plans  were  for  low  prices,  large  sales,  and  use  of 
profits  to  extend  the  business  and  reduce  the  cost  of  his 
machine.  Henry  Ford's  greatness  as  a  manufacturer 
consists  in  the  tenacity  with  which  he  has  clung  to  this 
conception.  Contrary  to  general  belief  in  the  automobile 
industry  he  maintained  that  a  high  sale  price  was  not 
necessary  for  large  profits;  indeed  he  declared  that  the 
lower  the  price,  the  larger  the  net  earnings  would  be. 
Nor  did  he  believe  that  low  wages  meant  prosperity. 
The  most  efficient  labor,  no  matter  what  the  nominal 
cost  might  be,  was  the  most  economical.  The  secret 
of  success  was  the  rapid  production  of  a  serviceable 
article  in  large  quantities.  When  Ford  first  talked  of 
turning  out  10,000  automobiles  a  year,  his  associates 
asked  him  where  he  was  going  to  sell  them.  Ford's 
answer  was  that  that  was  no  problem  at  all ;  the  machines 
would  sell  themselves.  He  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  there  were  millions  of  people  in  this  country  whose 
incomes  exceeded  $1800  a  year;  all  in  that  class  would 
become  prospective  purchasers  of  a  low-priced  automo 
bile.  There  were  6,000,000  farmers;  what  more  re 
ceptive  market  could  one  ask?  His  only  problem  was 
the  technical  one  —  how  to  produce  his  machine  in 
sufficient  quantities. 

The  bicycle  business  in  this  country  had  passed 
through  a  similar  experience.  When  first  placed  on 
the  market  bicycles  were  expensive;  it  took  $100  or 
$150  to  buy  one.  In  a  few  years,  however,  an  excellent 
machine  was  selling  for  $25  or  $30.  What  explained 
this  drop  in  price?  The  answer  is  that  the  manufac 
turers  learned  to  standardize  their  product.  Bicycle 
factories  became  not  so  much  places  where  the  articles 
were  manufactured  as  assembling  rooms  for  putting  them 
together.  The  several  parts  were  made  in  different  places, 
each  establishment  specializing  in  a  particular  part; 


DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE  153 

they  were  then  shipped  to  centers  where  they  were  trans 
formed  into  completed  machines.  The  result  was  that 
the  United  States,  despite  the  high  wages  paid  here, 
led  the  world  in  bicycle  making  and  flooded  all  coun 
tries  with  this  utilitarian  article.  Our  great  locomotive 
factories  had  developed  on  similar  lines.  Europeans  had 
always  marveled  that  Americans  could  build  these  costly 
articles  so  cheaply  that  they  could  undersell  European 
makers.  When  they  obtained  a  glimpse  of  an  Ameri 
can  locomotive  factory,  the  reason  became  plain.  In 
Europe  each  locomotive  was  a  separate  problem;  no  two, 
even  in  the  same  shop,  were  exactly  alike.  But  here 
locomotives  are  built  in  parts,  all  duplicates  of  one 
another;  the  parts  are  then  sent  by  machinery  to 
assembling  rooms  and  rapidly  put  together.  American 
harvesting  machines  are  built  in  the  same  way;  when 
ever  a  farmer  loses  a  part,  he  can  go  to  the  country  store 
and  buy  its  duplicate,  for  the  parts  of  the  same  machine 
do  not  vary  to  the  thousandth  of  an  inch.  The  same 
principle  applies  to  hundreds  of  other  articles. 

Thus  Henry  Ford  did  not  invent  standardization;  he 
merely  applied  this  great  American  idea  to  a  product 
to  which,  because  of  the  delicate  labor  required,  it  seemed 
at  first  unadapted.  He  soon  found  that  it  was  cheaper 
to  ship  the  parts  of  ten  cars  to  a  central  point  than  to 
ship  ten  completed  cars.  There  would  therefore  be  large 
savings  in  making  his  parts  in  particular  factories  and 
shipping  them  to  assembling  establishments.  In  this 
way  the  completed  cars  would  always  be  near  their 
markets.  Large  production  would  mean  that  he  could 
purchase  his  raw  materials  at  very  low  prices;  high 
wages  meant  that  he  could  get  the  efficient  labor  which 
was  demanded  by  his  rapid  fire  method  of  campaign. 
It  was  necessary  to  plan  the  making  of  every  part  to 
the  minutest  detail,  to  have  each  part  machined  to  its 


154  BURTON   J.    HENDRICK 

exact  size,  and  to  have  every  screw,  bolt,  and  bar  pre 
cisely  interchangeable.  About  the  year  1907  the  Ford 
factory  was  systematized  on  this  basis.  In  that  twelve 
month  it  produced  10,000  machines,  each  one  the 
absolute  counterpart  of  the  other  9,999.  American 
manufacturers  until  then  had  been  content  with  a  few 
hundred  a  year!  From  that  date  the  Ford  production 
has  rapidly  increased;  until,  in  1916,  there  were  nearly 
4,000,000  automobiles  in  the  United  States  —  more  than 
in  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put  together  —  of  which 
one-sixth  were  the  output  of  the  Ford  factories.  Many 
other  American  manufacturers  followed  the  Ford  plan, 
with  the  result  that  American  automobiles  are  duplicat 
ing  the  story  of  American  bicycles;  because  of  their 
cheapness  and  serviceability,  they  are  rapidly  dominating 
the  markets  of  the  world.  In  the  Great  War  American 
machines  have  surpassed  all  in  the  work  done  under 
particularly  exacting  circumstances. 

A  glimpse  of  a  Ford  assembling  room  —  and  we  can 
see  the  same  process  in  other  American  factories  — 
makes  clear  the  reasons  for  this  success.  In  these  rooms 
no  fitting  is  done;  the  fragments  of  automobiles  come 
in  automatically  and  are  simply  bolted  together.  First 
of  all  the  units  are  assembled  in  their  several  depart 
ments.  The  rear  axles,  the  front  axles,  the  frames,  the 
radiators,  and  the  motors  are  all  put  together  with  the 
same  precision  and  exactness  that  marks  the  operation 
of  the  completed  car.  Thus  the  wheels  come  from  one 
part  of  the  factory  and  are  rolled  on  an  inclined  plane 
to  a  particular  spot.  The  tires  are  propelled  by  some 
mysterious  force  to  the  same  spot;  as  the  two  elements 
coincide,  workmen  quickly  put  them  together.  In  a 
long  room  the  bodies  are  slowly  advanced  on  moving 
platforms  at  the  rate  of  about  a  foot  per  minute.  At 
the  side  stand  groups  of  men,  each  prepared  to  do  his 


DEMOCRATIZATION  OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE  155 

bit,  their  materials  being  delivered  at  convenient  points 
by  chutes.  As  the  tops  pass  by  these  men  quickly  bolt 
them  into  place,  and  the  completed  body  is  sent  to  a 
place  where  it  awaits  the  chassis.  This  important  section, 
comprising  all  the  machinery,  starts  at  one  end  of  a 
moving  platform  as  a  front  and  rear  axle  bolted  together 
with  the  frame.  As  this  slowly  advances,  it  passes  under 
a  bridge  containing  a  gasoline  tank,  which  is  quickly 
adjusted.  Farther  on  the  motor  is  swung  over  by  a 
small  hoist  and  lowered  into  position  on  the  frame. 
Presently  the  dash  slides  down  and  is  placed  in  position 
behind  the  motor.  As  the  rapidly  accumulating  mechan 
ism  passes  on,  different  workmen  adjust  the  mufflers, 
exhaust  pipes,  the  radiator,  and  the  wheels  which,  as 
already  indicated,  arrive  on  the  scene  completely  tired. 
Then  a  workman  seats  himself  on  the  gasoline  tank, 
which  contains  a  small  quantity  of  its  indispensable  fuel, 
starts  the  engine,  and  the  thing  moves  out  the  door 
under  its  own  power.  It  stops  for  a  moment  outside; 
the  completed  body  drops  down  from  the  second  floor, 
and  a  few  bolts  quickly  put  it  securely  in  place.  The 
workman  drives  the  now  finished  Ford  to  a  loading  plat 
form,  it  is  stored  away  in  a  box  car,  and  is  started  on 
its  way  to  market.  At  the  present  time  about  2000  cars 
are  daily  turned  out  in  this  fashion.  The  nation  de 
mands  them  at  a  more  rapid  rate  than  they  can  be  made. 
Herein  we  have  what  is  probably  America's  greatest 
manufacturing  exploit.  And  this  democratization  of 
the  automobile  comprises  more  than  the  acme  of  effi 
ciency  in  the  manufacturing  art.  The  career  of  Henry 
Ford  has  a  symbolic  significance  as  well.  It  may  be 
taken  as  signalizing  the  new  ideals  that  have  gained  the 
upper  hand  in  American  industry.  We  began  this 
review  of  American  business  with  Cornelius  Vanderbilt 
as  the  typical  figure.  It  is  a  happy  augury  that  it  closes 


1 56  BURTON   J.   HENDRICK 

with  Henry  Ford  in  the  foreground.  Vanderbilt,  valu 
able  as  were  many  of  his  achievements,  represented  that 
spirit  of  egotism  that  was  rampant  for  the  larger  part 
of  the  fifty  years  following  the  war.  He  was  always 
seeking  his  own  advantage,  and  he  never  regarded  the 
public  interest  as  anything  worth  a  moment's  considera 
tion.  With  Ford,  however,  the  spirit  of  service  has 
been  the  predominating  motive.  His  earnings  have  been 
immeasurably  greater  than  Vanderbilt's;  his  income  for 
two  years  amounts  to  nearly  Vanderbilt 's  total  fortune 
at  his  death;  but  the  piling  up  of  riches  has  been  by  no 
means  his  exclusive  purpose.  He  has  recognized  that  his 
workmen  are  his  partners  and  has  liberally  shared  with 
them  his  increasing  profits.  His  money  is  not  the  prod 
uct  of  speculation;  Ford  is  a  stranger  to  Wall  Street  and 
has  built  his  business  independently  of  the  great  banking 
interest.  He  has  enjoyed  no  monopoly,  as  have  the 
Rockefellers;  there  are  more  than  three  hundred  makers 
of  automobiles  in  the  United  States  alone.  He  has 
spurned  all  solicitations  to  join  combinations.  Far  from 
asking  tariff  favors  he  has  entered  European  markets 
and  undersold  English,  French,  and  German  makers  on 
their  own  ground.  Instead  of  taking  advantage  of  a 
great  public  demand  to  increase  his  prices,  Ford  has 
continuously  lowered  them.  Though  his  idealism  may 
have  led  him  into  an  occasional  personal  absurdity,  as 
a  business  man  he  may  be  taken  as  the  full  flower  of 
American  manufacturing  genius.  Possibly  America,  as 
a  consequence  of  universal  war,  is  advancing  to  a  higher 
state  of  industrial  organization;  but  an  economic  system 
is  not  entirely  evil  that  produces  such  an  industry  as  that 
which  has  made  the  automobile  the  servant  of  millions  of 
Americans. 


TRAVELING  AFOOT1 

JOHN  FINLEY 

"Traveling  afoot"  —  the  very  words  start  the  imagi 
nation  out  upon  the  road!  One's  nomad  ancestors  cry 
within  one  across  centuries  and  invite  to  the  open  spaces. 
Many  to  whom  this  cry  comes  are  impelled  to  seek  the 
mountain  paths,  the  forest  trails,  the  solitudes  or  wilder 
nesses  coursed  only  by  the  feet  of  wild  animals.  But  to 
me  the  black  or  dun  roads,  the  people's  highways,  are 
the  more  appealing  —  those  strips  or  ribbons  of  land 
which  is  still  held  in  common,  the  paths  wide  enough 
for  the  carriages  of  the  rich  and  the  carts  of  the  poor 
to  pass  each  other,  the  roads  over  which  they  all  bear 
their  creaking  burdens  or  run  on  errands  of  mercy  or 
need,  but  preferably  roads  that  do  not  also  invite  the 
flying  automobiles,  whose  occupants  so  often  make  the 
pedestrian  feel  that  even  these  strips  have  ceased  to  be 
democratic. 

My  traveling  afoot,  for  many  years,  has  been  chiefly 
in  busy  city  streets  or  in  the  country  roads  into  which 
they  run  —  not  far  from  the  day's  work  or  from  the 
thoroughfares  of  the  world's  concerns. 

Of  such  journeys  on  foot  which  I  recall  with  greatest 
pleasure  are  some  that  I  have  made  in  the  encircling 
of  cities.  More  than  once  I  have  walked  around  Man 
hattan  Island  (an  afternoon's  or  a  day's  adventure 

1  Reprinted,  by  permission  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers, 
from  The  Outlook,  April  25,  1917.  Copyright,  1917,  by  The 
Outlook  Co. 


i58  JOHN   FINLEY 

within  the  reach  of  thousands),  keeping  as  close  as 
possible  to  the  water's  edge  all  the  way  round.  One 
not  only  passes  through  physical  conditions  illustrating 
the  various  stages  of  municipal  development  from  the 
wild  forest  at  one  end  of  the  island  to  the  most  thickly 
populated  spots  of  the  earth  at  the  other,  but  one  also 
passes  through  diverse  cities  and  civilizations.  Another 
journey  of  this  sort  was  one  that  I  made  around  Paris, 
taking  the  line  of  the  old  fortifications,  which  are  still 
maintained,  with  a  zone  following  the  fortifications  most 
of  the  way  just  outside,  inhabited  only  by  squatters, 
some  of  whose  houses  were  on  wheels  ready  for  "mobili 
zation"  at  an  hour's  notice.  (It  was  near  the  end  of 
that  circumvallating  journey,  about  sunset,  on  the  last 
day  of  an  old  year,  that  I  saw  my  first  airplane  rising 
like  a  great  golden  bird  in  the  aviation  field,  and  a  few 
minutes  later  my  first  elongated  dirigible  —  precursors  of 
the  air  armies). 

I  have  read  that  the  Scotch  once  had  a  custom  of 
making  a  yearly  pilgrimage  or  excursion  around  their 
boroughs  or  cities  —  "beating  the  bounds,"  they  called 
it,  following  the  boundaries  that  they  might  know  what 
they  had  to  defend.  It  is  a  custom  that  might  profitably 
be  revived.  We  should  then  know  better  the  cities  in 
which  we  live.  We  should  be  stronger,  healthier,  for 
such  expeditions,  and  the  better  able  and  the  more 
willing  to  defend  our  boundaries. 

But  these  are  the  exceptional  foot  expeditions.  For 
most  urbanites  there  is  the  opportunity  for  the  daily 
walk  to  and  from  work,  if  only  they  were  not  tempted 
by  the  wheel  of  the  street  car  or  motor.  During  the 
subway  strike  in  New  York  not  long  ago  I  saw  able- 
bodied  men  riding  in  improvised  barges  or  buses  going 
at  a  slower-than-walking  pace,  because,  I  suppose,  though 
still  possessed  of  legs,  these  cliff-dwellers  had  become 


TRAVELING   AFOOT  159 

enslaved  by  wheels,  just  like  the  old  mythical  Ixion  who 
was  tied  to  one. 

I  once  walked  late  one  afternoon  with  a  man  who 
did  not  know  that  he  could  walk,  from  the  Custom-House, 
down  near  the  Battery,  to  the  City  College  gymnasium, 
1 3 8th  Street,  and  what  we  did  (at  the  rate  of  a  mile 
in  about  twelve  minutes)  thousands  are  as  able  to  do, 
though  not  perhaps  at  this  pace  when  the  streets  are  full. 

And  what  a  "preparedness"  measure  it  would  be  if 
thousands  of  the  young  city  men  would  march  uptown 
every  day  after  hours,  in  companies!  The  swinging 
stride  of  a  companionless  avenue  walk,  on  the  other 
hand,  gives  often  much  of  the  adventure  that  one  has 
in  carrying  the  ball  in  a  football  game. 

Many  times  when  I  could  not  get  out  of  the  city  for  a 
vacation  I  have  walked  up  Fifth  Avenue  at  the  end  of 
the  day  and  have  half  closed  my  eyes  in  order  to  see 
men  and  women  as  the  blind  man  saw  them  when  his  eyes 
were  first  touched  by  the  Master  —  see  them  as  "trees 
walking." 

But  the  longing  of  all  at  times,  whether  it  be  an 
atavistic  or  a  cultivated  longing,  is  for  the  real  trees 
and  all  that  goes  with  them.  Immediately  there  open 
valleys  with  "pitcher"  elms,  so  graceful  that  one  thinks 
of  the  famous  line  from  the  Odyssey  in  which  Ulysses  says 
that  once  he  saw  a  tree  as  beautiful  as  the  most  beautiful 
woman  —  valleys  with  elms,  hill-tops  with  far-signaling 
poplars,  mountains  with  pines,  or  prairies  with  their 
groves  and  orchards.  About  every  city  lies  an  environ 
ing  charm,  even  if  it  have  no  trees,  as,  for  example, 
Cheyenne,  Wyoming,  where,  stopping  for  a  few  hours 
not  long  ago,  I  spent  most  of  the  time  walking  out  to 
the  encircling  mesas  that  give  view  of  both  mountains 
and  city.  I  have  never  found  a  city  without  its  walkers' 
rewards.  New  York  has  its  Palisade  paths,  its  West- 


160  JOHN    FINLEY 

Chester  hills  and  hollows,  its  "south  shore"  and  "north 
shore,"  and  its  Staten  Island  (which  I  have  often  thought 
of  as  Atlantis,  for  once  on  a  holiday  I  took  Plato  with 
me  to  spend  an  afternoon  on  its  littoral,  away  from  the 
noise  of  the  city,  and  on  my  way  home  found  that  my 
Plato  had  stayed  behind,  and  he  never  reappeared,  though 
I  searched  car  and  boat).  Chicago  has  its  miles  of  lake 
shore  walks;  Albany,  its  Helderbergs;  and  San  Fran 
cisco,  its  Golden  Gate  Road.  And  I  recall  with  a 
pleasure  which  the  war  cannot  take  away  a  number  of 
suburban  European  walks.  One  was  across  the  Cam- 
pagna  from  Frascati  to  Rome,  when  I  saw  an  Easter 
week  sun  go  down  behind  the  Eternal  City.  Another 
was  out  to  Fiesole  from  Florence  and  back  again;  an 
other,  out  and  up  from  where  the  Saone  joins  the  Rhone 
at  Lyons;  another,  from  Montesquieu's  chateau  to  Bor 
deaux;  another,  from  Edinburgh  out  to  Arthur's  Seat 
and  beyond;  another,  from  Lausanne  to  Geneva,  past 
Paderewski's  villa,  along  the  glistening  lake  with  its 
background  of  Alps;  and  still  another,  from  Eton  (where 
I  spent  the  night  in  a  cubicle  looking  out  on  Windsor 
Castle)  to  London,  starting  at  dawn.  One  cannot  know 
the  intimate  charm  of  the  urban  penumbra  who  makes 
only  shuttle  journeys  by  motor  or  street  cars. 

These  are  near  journeys,  but  there  are  times  when  they 
do  not  satisfy,  when  one  must  set  out  on  a  far  journey, 
test  one's  will  and  endurance  of  body,  or  get  away 
from  the  usual.  Sometimes  the  long  walk  is  the  only 
medicine.  Once  when  suffering  from  one  of  the  few  colds 
of  my  life  (incurred  in  California)  I  walked  from  the 
rim  of  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado  down  to  the 
river  and  back  (a  distance  of  fourteen  miles,  with  a 
descent  of  five  thousand  feet  and  a  like  ascent),  and 
found  myself  entirely  cured  of  the  malady  which  had 
clung  to  me  for  days.  My  first  fifty-mile  walk  years 


TRAVELING   AFOOT  161 

ago  was  begun  in  despair  over  a  slow  recovery  from  the 
sequelae  of  diphtheria. 

But  most  of  these  far  walks  have  been  taken  just  for 
the  joy  of  walking  in  the  free  air.  Among  these  have 
been  journeys  over  Porto  Rico  (of  two  hundred  miles), 
around  Yellowstone  Park  (of  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles,  making  the  same  stations  as  the  coaches), 
over  portages  along  the  waterways  following  the  French 
explorers  from  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  in  country  roads  visiting  one-room  schools 
in  the  State  of  New  York  and  over  the  boundless 
prairie  fields  long  ago. 

But  the  walks  which  I  most  enjoy,  in  retrospect  at  any 
rate,  are  those  taken  at  night.  Then  one  makes  one's 
own  landscape  with  only  the  help  of  the  moon  or  stars 
or  the  distant  lights  of  a  city,  or  with  one's  unaided 
imagination  if  the  sky  is  filled  with  cloud. 

The  next  better  thing  to  the  democracy  of  a  road 
by  day  is  the  monarchy  of  a  road  by  night,  when  one 
has  one's  own  terrestrial  way  under  guidance  of  a  Provi 
dence  that  is  nearer.  It  was  in  the  "cool  of  the  day" 
that  the  Almighty  is  pictured  as  walking  in  the  garden, 
but  I  have  most  often  met  him  on  the  road  by  night. 

Several  times  I  have  walked  down  Staten  Island  and 
across  New  Jersey  to  Princeton  "after  dark,"  the  desti 
nation  being  a  particularly  attractive  feature  of  this 
walk.  But  I  enjoy  also  the  journeys  that  are  made 
in  strange  places  where  one  knows  neither  the  way  nor 
the  destination,  except  from  a  map  or  the  advice  of 
signboard  or  kilometer  posts  (which  one  reads  by  the 
flame  of  a  match,  or,  where  that  is  wanting,  sometimes 
by  following  the  letters  and  figures  on  a  post  with  one's 
fingers),  or  the  information,  usually  inaccurate,  of  some 
other  wayfarer.  Most  of  these  journeys  have  been  made 
of  a  necessity  that  has  prevented  my  making  them  by 


1 62  JOHN    FINLEY 

day,  but  I  have  in  every  case  been  grateful  afterward  for 
the  necessity.  In  this  country  they  have  been  usually 
among  the  mountains  —  the  Green  Mountains  or  the 
White  Mountains  or  the  Catskills.  But  of  all  my  night 
faring,  a  night  on  the  moors  of  Scotland  is  the  most 
impressive  and  memorable,  though  without  incident.  No 
mountain  landscape  is  to  me  more  awesome  than  the 
moorlands  by  night,  or  more  alluring  than  the  moorlands 
by  day  when  the  heather  is  in  bloom.  Perhaps  this 
is  only  the  ancestors  speaking  again. 

But  something  besides  ancestry  must  account  for  the 
others.  Indeed,  in  spite  of  it,  I  was  drawn  one  night 
to  Assisi,  where  St.  Francis  had  lived.  Late  in  the 
evening  I  started  on  to  Foligno  in  order  to  take  a  train 
in  to  Rome  for  Easter  morning.  I  followed  a  white 
road  that  wound  around  the  hills,  through  silent  clusters 
of  cottages  tightly  shut  up  with  only  a  slit  of  light 
visible  now  and  then,  meeting  not  a  human  being  along 
the  way  save  three  somber  figures  accompanying  an  ox 
cart,  a  man  at  the  head  of  the  oxen  and  a  man  and  a 
woman  at  the  tail  of  the  cart  —  a  theme  for  Millet. 
(I  asked  in  broken  Italian  how  far  it  was  to  Foligno, 
and  the  answer  was,  "Una  hora"  —  distance  in  time  and 
not  in  miles.)  Off  in  the  night  I  could  see  the  lights 
of  Perugia,  and  some  time  after  midnight  I  began  to  see 
the  lights  of  Foligno  —  of  Perugia  and  Foligno,  where 
Raphael  had  wandered  and  painted.  The  adventure  of 
it  all  was  that  when  I  reached  Foligno  I  found  it  was 
a  walled  town,  that  the  gate  was  shut,  and  that  I  had 
neither  passport  nor  intelligible  speech.  There  is  an 
interesting  walking  sequel  to  this  journey.  I  carried 
that  night  a  wooden  water-bottle,  such  as  the  Italian 
soldiers  used  to  carry,  filling  it  from  the  fountain  at  the 
gate  of  Assisi  before  starting.  Just  a  month  later,  under 
the  same  full  moon,  I  was  walking  between  midnight 


TRAVELING   AFOOT  163 

and  morning  in  New  Hampshire.  I  had  the  same  water- 
bottle  and  stopped  at  a  spring  to  fill  it.  When  I  turned 
the  bottle  upside  down,  a  few  drops  of  water  from  the 
fountain  of  Assisi  fell  into  the  New  England  spring, 
which  for  me,  at  any  rate,  has  been  forever  sweetened 
by  this  association. 

All  my  long  night  walks  seem  to  me  now  as  but 
preparation  for  one  which  I  was  obliged  to  make  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  in  Europe.  I  had  crossed  the 
Channel  from  England  to  France,  on  the  day  that  war 
was  declared  by  England,  to  get  a  boy  of  ten  years  out 
of  the  war  zone.  I  got  as  far  by  rail  as  a  town  between 
Arras  and  Amiens,  where  I  expected  to  take  a  train  on 
a  branch  road  toward  Dieppe;  but  late  in  the  after 
noon  I  was  informed  that  the  scheduled  train  had  been 
canceled  and  that  there  might  not  be  another  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  if  then.  Automobiles  were  not  to  be  had 
even  if  I  had  been  able  to  pay  for  one.  So  I  set  out  at 
dusk  on  foot  toward  Dieppe,  which  was  forty  miles  or 
more  distant.  The  experiences  of  that  night  would  in 
themselves  make  one  willing  to  practice  walking  for 
years  in  order  to  be  able  to  walk  through  such  a  night 
in  whose  dawn  all  Europe  waked  to  war.  There  was  the 
quiet,  serious  gathering  of  the  soldiers  at  the  place  of 
rendezvous;  there  were  the  all-night  preparations  of  the 
peasants  along  the  way  to  meet  the  new  conditions; 
there  was  the  pelting  storm  from  which  I  sought  shelter 
in  the  niches  for  statues  in  the  walls  of  an  abandoned 
chateau;  there  was  the  clatter  of  the  hurrying  feet  of 
soldiers  or  gendarmes  who  properly  arrested  the  wan 
derer,  searched  him,  took  him  to  a  guard-house,  and 
detained  him  until  certain  that  he  was  an  American 
citizen  and  a  friend  of  France,  when  he  was  let  go  on 
his  way  with  a  bon  voyage;  there  was  the  never-to-be- 
forgotten  dawn  upon  the  harvest  fields  in  which  only 


1 64  JOHN    FINLEY 

old  men,  women,  and  children  were  at  work;  there  was 
the  gathering  of  the  peasants  with  commandeered  horses 
and  carts  in  the  beautiful  park  on  the  water-front  at 
Dieppe;  and  there  was  much  besides;  but  they  were 
experiences  for  the  most  part  which  only  one  on  foot 
could  have  had. 

And  the  moral  of  my  whole  story  is  that  walking  is 
not  only  a  joy  in  itself,  but  that  it  gives  an  intimacy 
with  the  sacred  things  and  the  primal  things  of  earth 
that  are  not  revealed  to  those  who  rush  by  on  wheels. 

I  have  wished  to  organize  just  one  more  club  —  the 
"Holy  Earth"  club,  with  the  purposes  that  Liberty 
Bailey  has  set  forth  in  his  book  of  the  same  title  (The 
Holy  Earth),  but  I  should  admit  to  membership  in  it 
(except  for  special  reasons)  only  those  who  love  to  walk 
upon  the  earth. 

Traveling  afoot!  This  is  the  best  posture  in  which 
to  worship  the  God  of  the  Out-of -Doors! 


OLD  BOATS1 
WALTER  PRICHARD  EATON 

Anything  which  man  has  hewn  from  stone  or  shaped 
from  wood,  put  to  the  uses  of  his  pleasure  or  his  toil, 
and  then  at  length  abandoned  to  crumble  slowly  back 
into  its  elements  of  soil  or  metal,  is  fraught  for  the 
beholder  with  a  wistful  appeal,  whether  it  be  the  pyra 
mids  of  Egyptian  kings,  or  an  abandoned  farmhouse  on 
the  road  to  Moosilauke,  or  only  a  rusty  hay-rake  in  a 
field  now  overgrown  with  golden-rod  and  Queen  Anne's 
lace,  and  fast  surrendering  to  the  returning  tide  of  the 
forest.  A  pyramid  may  thrill  us  by  its  tremendousness; 
we  may  dream  how  once  the  legions  of  Mark  Antony 
encamped  below  it,  how  the  eagles  of  Napoleon  went 
tossing  past.  But  in  the  end  we  shall  reflect  on  the 
toiling  slaves  who  built  it,  block  upon  heavy  block,  to 
be  a  monarch's  tomb,  and  on  the  monarch  who  now  lies 
beneath  (if  his  mummy  has  not  been  transferred  to  the 
British  Museum).  The  old  gray  house  by  the  roadside, 
abandoned,  desolate,  with  a  bittersweet  vine  entwined 
around  the  chimney  and  a  raspberry  bush  pushing  up 
through  the  rotted  doorsill,  takes  us  back  to  the  days 
when  the  pioneer's  axe  rang  in  this  clearing,  hewing  the 
timbers  for  beam  and  rafter,  and  the  smoke  of  the  first 
fire  went  up  that  ample  flue.  How  many  a  time  have 
I  paused  in  my  tramping  to  poke  around  such  a  ruin, 

1  From  Green  Trails  and  Upland  Pastures,  by  Walter  Prichard 
Eaton.  Copyright,  1917,  by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.  By  per 
mission  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers. 

165 


1 66  WALTER   PRICHARD   EATON 

reconstructing  the  vanished  life  of  a  day  when  the 
cities  had  not  sucked  our  hill  towns  dry  and  this  scrubby 
wilderness  was  a  productive  farm! 

The  motor  cars  go  through  the  Berkshires  in  steady 
procession  by  the  valley  highways,  past  great  estates 
betokening  our  changed  civilization.  But  the  back  roads 
of  Berkshire  are  known  to  few,  and  you  may  tramp  all 
the  morning  over  the  Beartown  Mountain  plateau,  by  a 
road  where  the  green  grass  grows  between  the  ruts, 
without  meeting  a  motor,  or  indeed,  a  vehicle  of  any 
sort.  A  century  ago  Beartown  was  a  thriving  com 
munity,  producing  many  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
grain,  maple  sugar,  wool,  and  mutton.  To-day  there  are 
less  than  half  a  dozen  families  left,  and  they  survive 
by  cutting  cord  wood  from  the  sheep  pastures!  We 
must  haul  our  wool  from  the  Argentine,  and  our  mutton 
from  Montana,  while  our  own  land  goes  back  to  un 
productive  wilderness.  As  the  road  draws  near  the 
long  hill  down  into  Monterey,  there  stands  a  ruined 
house  beside  it,  one  of  many  ruins  you  will  have  passed, 
the  plaster  in  heaps  on  the  floor,  the  windows  gone, 
the  door  half  fallen  from  its  long,  hand-wrought  hinges. 
It  is  a  house  built  around  a  huge  central  chimney, 
which  seems  still  as  solid  as  on  the  day  it  was  com 
pleted.  The  rotted  mantels  were  simply  wrought,  but 
with  perfect  lines,  and  the  panelling  above  them  was 
extremely  good.  So  was  the  delicate  fanlight  over  the 
door,  in  which  a  bit  of  glass  still  clings,  iridescent  now 
like  oil  on  water.  Under  the  eaves  the  carpenter  had 
indulged  in  a  Greek  border,  and  over  the  woodshed 
opening  behind  he  had  spanned  a  keystone  arch.  Peer 
ing  into  this  shed,  under  the  collapsing  roof,  you  see 
what  is  left  of  an  axe  embedded  in  a  pile  of  reddish  vege 
table  mould,  which  was  once  the  chopping  block.  Peer 
ing  through  the  windows  of  the  house,  you  see  a  few 


OLD    BOATS  167 

bits  of  simple  furniture  still  inhabiting  the  ruined  rooms. 
Just  outside,  in  the  door-yard,  the  day  lilies,  run  wild 
in  the  grass,  speak  to  you  of  a  housewife's  hand  across 
the  vanished  years.  The  barn  has  gone  completely, 
overthrown  and  wiped  out  by  the  advancing  forest  edge. 
Enough  of  the  clearing  still  remains,  however,  to  show 
where  the  cornfields  and  the  pastures  lay.  They  are  wild 
with  berry  stalks  and  flowers  now,  still  and  vacant  under 
the  Summer  sun. 

The  ruins  of  war  are  melancholy,  and  raise  our  bitter 
resentment.  Yet  how  often  we  pass  such  an  abandoned 
farm  as  this  without  any  realization  that  it,  too,  is  a 
ruin  of  war,  the  ceaseless  war  of  commercial  greed.  No 
less  surely  than  in  stricken  Belgium  has  there  been  a 
deportation  here.  Factories  and  cities  have  swallowed 
up  a  whole  population,  indeed,  along  the  Beartown  road. 
It  is  easy  to  say  that  they  went  willingly,  that  they 
preferred  the  life  of  cities;  that  the  dreary  tenement 
under  factory  grime,  with  a  "movie"  theatre  around  the 
corner,  is  an  acceptable  substitute  to  them  for  the  ample 
fireplaces,  the  fanlight  door,  the  rolling  fields  and  road 
side  brook.  We  hear  much  discussion  in  New  England 
to-day  of  "how  to  keep  the  young  folks  on  the  farm." 
But  why  should  they  stay  on  the  farm,  to  toil  and 
starve,  in  body  and  mind?  We  have  so  organized  our 
whole  society  on  a  competitive  commercial  basis  that 
they  can  now  do  nothing  else.  Those  ancient  apple  trees 
beside  the  ruined  house  once  grew  fruit  superior  in  taste 
to  any  apple  which  ever  came  from  Hood  River  or  Wenat- 
chee,  and  could  grow  it  again;  but  greed  has  determined 
that  our  cities  shall  pay  five  cents  apiece  for  the 
showy  western  product,  and  the  small  individual  grower 
of  the  East  is  helpless.  We  have  raised  individualism 
to  a  creed,  and  killed  the  individual.  We  have  exalted 
"business,"  and  depopulated  our  farms.  The  old  gray 


i68  WALTER   PRICHARD   EATON 

ruin  on  the  back  road  to  Monterey  is  an  epitome  of  our 
history  for  a  hundred  years. 

But  to  pursue  such  reflections  too  curiously  would  take 
our  mind  from  the  road,  our  eyes  from  the  wild  flower 
gardens  lining  the  way  —  the  banks  of  blueberries  fra 
grant  in  the  sun,  the  stately  borders  of  meadow  rue  where 
the  grassy  track  dips  down  through  a  moist  hollow.  And 
to  pursue  such  reflections  too  curiously  would  take  us 
far  afield  from  the  spot  we  planned  to  reach  when  we 
took  up  our  pen  for  this  particular  journey.  That  spot 
was  the  bit  of  sandy  lane,  just  in  front  of  Cap'n  Brad- 
ley's  house  in  old  South  County,  Rhode  Island.  The 
lane  leads  down  from  the  colonial  Post  Road  to  the  shore 
of  the  Salt  Pond,  and  the  Cap'n's  house  is  the  first  one 
on  the  left  after  you  leave  the  road.  The  second  house 
on  the  left  is  inhabited  by  Miss  Maria  Mills.  The  third 
house  on  the  left  is  the  Big  House,  where  they  take 
boarders.  The  Big  House  is  on  the  shore  of  the  Salt 
Pond.  There  are  no  houses  on  the  right  of  the  lane, 
only  fields  full  of  bay  and  huckleberries.  The  lane  runs 
right  out  on  a  small  pier  and  apparently  jumps  off  the 
end  into  whatever  boat  is  moored  there,  where  it  hides 
away  in  the  hold,  waiting  to  be  taken  on  a  far  journey 
to  the  yellow  line  of  the  ocean  beach,  or  the  flag-marked 
reaches  of  the  oyster  bars.  It  is  a  delightful,  leisurely 
little  lane,  a  byway  into  another  order  from  the  modern 
ized  macadam  Post  Road  where  the  motors  whiz.  You 
go  down  a  slight  incline  to  the  Cap'n's  house,  and  the 
motors  are  shut  out  from  your  vision.  From  here  you 
can  glimpse  the  dancing  water  of  the  Salt  Pond,  and 
smell  it  too,  when  the  wind  is  south,  carrying  the  odour 
of  gasolene  the  other  way.  The  Cap'n's  house  is 
painted  brown,  a  little,  brown  dwelling  with  a  blue-legged 
sailor  man  on  poles  in  the  dooryard,  revolving  in  the 
breeze.  The  Cap'n  is  a  little  brown  man,  for  that 


OLD    BOATS  169 

matter.  He  is  reconciled  to  a  life  ashore  by  his  pipe 
and  his  pension,  and  by  his  lookout  built  of  weathered 
timber  on  a  grass-covered  sand  drift  just  abaft  the 
kitchen  door,  whither  he  betakes  himself  with  his  spy 
glass  on  clear  days  to  see  whether  it  is  his  old  friend 
Cap'n  Perry  down  there  on  number  two  oyster  bar,  or 
how  heavy  the  traffic  is  to-day  far  out  beyond  the  yellow 
beach  line,  where  Block  Island  rises  like  a  blue  mirage. 
Cap'n  Bradley  boasts  a  garden,  too.  It  is  just  across 
the  lane  from  his  front  door.  There  are  three  varieties 
of  flowers  in  it  —  nasturtiums,  portulacas,  and  bright 
red  geraniums.  The  portulacas  grow  around  the  border, 
then  come  the  nasturtiums,  and  finally  the  taller  gerani 
ums  in  the  centre.  The  Cap'n  has  never  seen  nor 
heard  of  those  ridiculous  wooden  birds  on  green  shafts 
which  it  is  now  the  fashion  to  stick  up  in  flower  beds, 
but  he  has  something  quite  appropriate,  and,  all  things 
considered,  quite  as  "artistic."  In  the  bow  of  his  garden, 
astride  a  spar,  is  a  blue-legged  sailor  man  ten  inches 
tall,  keeping  perpetual  lookout  up  the  lane.  For  this 
flower  bed  is  planted  in  an  old  dory  filled  with  earth.  She 
had  outlived  her  usefulness  down  there  in  the  Salt  Pond, 
or  even,  it  may  be,  out  on  the  blue  sea  itself,  but  no 
vandal  hands  were  laid  upon  her  to  stave  her  up  for 
kindling  wood.  Instead,  the  Captain  himself  painted 
her  a  bright  yellow,  set  her  down  in  front  of  his  dwelling, 
and  filled  her  full  of  flowers.  She  is  disintegrating 
slowly;  already,  after  a  rain,  the  muddy  water  trickles 
through  her  side  and  stains  the  yellow  paint.  But  what 
a  pretty  and  peaceful  process!  She  might  not  strike 
you  as  a  happy  touch  set  down  in  one  of  those  formal 
gardens  depicted  in  The  House  Beautiful  or  Country 
Life,  but  here  beside  the  salty  lane  past  Cap'n  Bradley's 
door,  gaudy  in  colour,  with  her  load  of  homely  flowers 
and  her  quaint  little  sailor  man  astride  his  spar  above 


1 70  WALTER    PRICHARD    EATON 

the  bright  geraniums,  she  is  perfect.  No  boat  could 
come  to  a  better  end.  She's  taking  portulacas  to  the 
Islands  of  the  Blest! 

Miss  Maria  Mills,  in  the  next  house,  never  followed 
the  sea,  and  her  idea  of  a  garden  is  more  conventional. 
She  grows  hollyhocks  beside  the  house,  and  sweet  peas 
on  her  wire  fence.  But  at  the  lane's  end,  where  the 
water  of  the  Salt  Pond  laps  the  pier,  you  may  see 
another  old  boat  put  to  humbler  uses,  now  that  its  sea 
faring  days  are  over,  and  uses  sometimes  no  less  romantic 
than  the  Cap'n's  garden.  It  is  a  flat-bottomed  boat, 
and  lies  bottom  side  up  just  above  the  little  beach  made 
by  the  lap  of  the  waves,  for  the  tide  does  not  affect  the 
Salt  Pond  back  here  three  miles  from  the  outlet.  The 
paint  has  nearly  gone  from  this  aged  craft,  though  a  few 
flakes  of  green  still  cling  under  the  gunwales.  But  in 
place  of  paint  there  have  appeared  an  incredible  num 
ber  of  initials,  carved  with  every  degree  of  skill  or 
clumsiness,  over  bottom  and  sides.  This  boat  is  the 
bench  whereon  you  wait  for  the  launch  to  carry  you 
down  the  Pond,  for  the  catboat  or  thirty-footer  to  be 
brought  in  from  her  moorings,  for  Cap'n  Perry  to  land 
with  a  load  of  oysters;  or  it  is  the  bench  you  sit  upon 
to  watch  the  sunset  glow  behind  the  pines  on  the  oppo 
site  headland,  the  pines  where  the  blue  herons  roost,  or 
to  see  the  moon  track  on  the  dancing  water.  The  Post 
Road  is  alive  with  motors  now,  far  into  the  evening. 
You  get  your  mail  from  the  little  post  office  beside  it 
as  quickly  as  possible  —  which  isn't  very  quickly,  to 
be  sure,  for  we  do  not  hurry  in  South  County,  even  when 
we  are  employed  by  Uncle  Sam  —  and  then  you  turn 
down  the  quiet  lane,  past  the  Cap'n's  garden,  toward 
the  lap  of  quiet  water  and  the  salty  smell.  Affairs  of 
State  are  now  discussed,  of  a  summer  evening,  upon  the 
bottom  of  this  upturned  boat,  while  a  case  knife  dulled 


OLD    BOATS  171 

by  oyster  shells  picks  out  a  new  initial.  And  when  the 
fate  of  the  nation  is  settled,  or  to-morrow's  weather 
thoroughly  discussed  (the  two  are  of  about  equal  im 
portance  to  us  in  South  County,  with  the  balance  in 
favour  of  the  weather),  and  the  debaters  have  departed 
to  bed,  some  of  them  leaving  by  water  with  a  rattle 
of  tackle  or,  more  often  in  these  degenerate  days,  the 
put,  put  of  an  unmuffled  exhaust,  then  other  figures  come 
to  the  upturned  boat,  speaking  softly  or  not  at  all,  and 
in  the  morning  you  may,  perhaps,  find  double  initials 
freshly  cut,  with  a  circle  sentimentally  enclosing  them. 
So  the  old  craft  passes  her  last  days  beside  the  lapping 
water,  a  pleasant  and  useful  end. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Big  House  from  the  pier,  at 
the  head  of  a  tiny  dredged  inlet,  there  is  an  old  boat- 
house.  It  seems  but  yesterday  that  we  used  to  warp 
the  Idler  in  there  when  summer  was  over,  get  the  chains 
under  her,  and  block  her  up  for  the  winter.  She  spent 
the  winter  on  one  side  of  the  slip ;  the  Sea  Mist,  a  clumsy 
craft  that  couldn't  stir  short  of  a  half  gale,  spent  the 
winter  on  the  other  side.  Over  them,  on  racks,  the 
rowboats  were  slung.  There  was  a  larger  boathouse 
for  the  big  fellows.  What  busy  days  we  spent  in  May 
or  June,  caulking  and  scraping  and  painting,  splicing  and 
repairing,  making  the  little  Idler  ready  for  the  sea  again! 
She  was  an  eighteen-foot  cat,  a  bit  of  a  tub,  I  fear,  but 
the  best  on  the  Pond  in  her  day,  eating  up  close  into 
the  wind,  sensitive,  alert,  with  a  pair  of  white  heels 
she  had  shown  to  many  a  larger  craft.  Surely  it  was 
but  yesterday  that  I  rowed  out  to  her  where  she  was 
moored  a  hundred  feet  from  shore,  climbed  aboard, 
hoisted  sail,  and,  with  my  pipe  drawing  sweetly,  sat 
down  beside  the  tiller  and  played  out  the  sheet  till  the 
sail  filled;  there  was  a  crack  and  snaffle  of  straining 
tackle,  the  boat  leaped  forward,  the  tiller  batted  my  ribs, 


172  WALTER   PRICHARD   EATON 

the  Idler  heeled  over,  and  then  quietly,  softly,  as 
rhythmic  as  a  song,  the  water  raced  hissing  along  her 
rail,  the  little  waves  slapped  beneath  her  bow  —  and  the 
world  was  good  to  be  alive  in!  Surely  it  was  but  yes 
terday  that  the  white  sail  of  the  Idler  was  like  a  gull's 
wing  on  the  Pond! 

But  the  white  sail  wings  are  few  on  the  Pond  to-day, 
and  the  Idler  lies  on  her  side  in  the  weeds  behind  the 
boathouse.  She  had  to  make  room  for  the  motor  craft. 
She  is  too  bulky  for  a  flower  bed,  too  convex  for  a  bench. 
Her  paint  is  nearly  gone  now,  both  the  yellow  body 
colour  and  the  pretty  green  and  white  stripe  along  her 
rail  that  we  used  to  put  on  with  such  care.  Her  seams 
are  yawning,  and  the  rain  water  pool  that  at  first  settled 
on  the  low  side  of  her  cockpit  has  now  seeped  through, 
and  a  little  deposit  of  soil  has  accumulated,  in  which 
a  sickly  weed  is  growing.  Poor  old  Idler!  One  day  I 
got  an  axe,  resolved  to  break  her  up,  but  when  it  came 
to  the  point  of  burying  the  first  blow  my  resolution  failed. 
I  thought  of  all  the  hours  of  enthusiastic  labour  I  had 
spent  upon  those  eighteen  feet  of  oak  ribs  and  planking; 
I  thought  of  all  the  thrilling  hours  of  the  race,  when 
we  had  squeezed  her  into  the  wind  past  Perry's  Point 
and  saved  a  precious  tack ;  I  thought  of  the  dreamy  hours 
when  she  had  borne  us  down  the  Pond  in  the  summer 
sunshine,  or  through  the  gray,  mysterious  fog,  or  under 
the  stars  above  the  black  water.  So  instead,  I  laid  my 
hand  gently  on  her  rotting  tiller,  and  then  took  the  axe 
back  to  the  woodshed.  She  will  never  ride  the  waves 
again,  but  she  shall  dissolve  into  her  elements  peace 
fully,  in  sight  of  the  salt  water,  in  the  quiet  grass  behind 
the  boathouse. 

It  seems  to  me  that  all  my  life  I  have  had  memories  of 
old  boats.  One  of  my  earliest  recollections  is  of  Old 
Ironsides,  in  the  Charlestown  Navy  Yard,  dismantled 


OLD    BOATS  173 

and  decked  over,  but  saved  from  destruction  by  Dr. 
Holmes's  poem.  What  thrilling  visions  it  awoke  to  climb 
aboard  her  and  tread  her  decks!  Acres  of  spinnaker  and 
topgallants  broke  out  aloft,  cannon  boomed,  smoke 
rolled,  "grape  and  canister"  flew  through  the  air,  chain 
shot  came  hurtling,  and  the  Stars  and  Stripes  waved 
through  it  all,  triumphant.  The  white  ironclads  out  in 
the  channel  (for  in  those  days  they  were  white)  evoked 
no  such  visions.  Another  memory  is  of  a  childhood  trip 
to  New  Bedford  and  a  long  walk  for  hours  by  the 
water  front,  out  on  green  and  rotting  piers  where  chunky, 
square-rigged  whalers,  green  and  rotting,  too,  were 
moored  alongside.  The  life  of  the  whaler  was  in  those 
days  something  infinitely  fascinating  to  us  boys.  We 
read  of  the  chase,  the  hurling  of  the  harpoon,  the  mad 
ride  over  the  waves  towed  by  the  plunging  monster. 
And  here  were  the  very  ships  which  had  taken  the  brave 
whalers  to  the  hunting  grounds,  here  on  their  decks  were 
some  of  the  whale  boats  which  had  been  towed  over  the 
churned  and  blood-flecked  sea!  Why  should  they  be 
green  and  rotting  now?  They  produced  upon  me  an 
impression  of  infinite  sadness.  It  seemed  as  if  a  great 
hand  had  suddenly  wiped  a  romantic  bloom  off  my 
vision  of  the  world. 

But  it  was  not  long  after  that  I  knew  the  romance  of 
a  launching.  It  was  at  Kennebunkport  in  Maine.  All 
summer  the  ship  yards  on  either  side  of  the  river,  close 
to  the  little  town  and  under  the  very  shadow  of  the 
white  meeting  house  steeple,  had  rung  with  the  blows 
of  axe  and  hammer.  The  great  ribs  rose  into  place,  the 
sheathing  went  on,  the  decks  were  laid,  the  masts  stepped; 
finally  the  first  rigging  was  adjusted.  After  the  work 
men  left  in  the  late  afternoon,  we  boys  swarmed  over 
the  ships  —  three-masters,  smelling  deliciously  of  new 
wood  and  caulking,  and  played  we  were  sailors.  When 


174  WALTER   PRICHARD   EATON 

the  rope  ladders  were  finally  in  place,  we  raced  up  and 
down  them,  sitting  in  the  crow's  nest  on  a  line  with  the 
church  weather  vane,  and  pretending  to  reef  the  sails. 
It  was  an  event  when  the  ships  were  launched.  The 
tide  was  at  the  flood,  gay  canoes  filled  the  stream  along 
both  banks,  hundreds  of  people  massed  on  the  shore. 
A  little  girl  stood  in  the  bow  with  a  bottle  of  wine  on 
a  string.  An  engine  tooted,  cables  creaked,  and  down 
the  greased  way  slid  the  ship,  with  a  dip  and  a  heave 
when  she  hit  the  water  that  made  big  waves  on  either 
side  and  set  the  canoes  to  rocking  madly,  while  the  crowd 
cheered  and  shouted.  After  the  launching,  the  schooners 
were  towed  out  to  sea,  and  down  the  coast,  to  be  fitted 
elsewhere.  We  boys  followed  them  in  canoes  as  far  as 
the  breakwater,  and  watched  them  disappear.  Soon  their 
sails  would  be  set,  and  they  would  join  the  white  ad 
venturers  out  there  on  the  world  rim. 

Where  are  they  now,  I  wonder?  Are  they  still  buffet 
ing  the  seas,  or  do  they  lie  moored  and  outmoded  beside 
some  green  wharf,  their  days  of  usefulness  over?  I 
remember  hoping,  as  I  watched  them  pass  out  to  sea, 
that  they  would  not  share  the  fate  of  the  unknown  craft 
which  lay  buried  in  the  sands  a  mile  down  the  coast. 
It  was  said  that  she  came  ashore  in  the  "Great  Storm" 
of  1814  (or  thereabouts).  Nothing  was  left  of  her 
in  our  day  but  her  sturdy  ribs,  which  thrust  up  a  few 
feet  above  the  sand,  outlining  her  shape,  and  were  only 
visible  at  low  water.  On  a  stormy  day,  when  the  seas 
were  high,  I  used  to  stand  at  the  head  of  the  beach 
and  try  to  picture  how  she  drove  up  on  the  shore, 
shuddering  deliciously  as  each  great  wave  came  pounding 
down  on  all  that  was  left  of  her  oaken  frame.  When  I 
read  in  the  newspaper  of  a  wreck  I  thought  of  her,  and 
I  think  of  her  to  this  day  on  such  occasions,  thrusting 
up  black  and  dripping  ribs  above  the  wet  sands  at  low 


OLD    BOATS  175 

water,  or  vanishing  beneath  the  pounding  foam  of  the 
breakers. 

If  you  take  the  shore  line  train  from  Boston  to  New 
York,  you  pass  through  a  sleepy  old  town  in  Connecticut 
where  a  spur  track  with  rusty  rails  runs  out  to  the 
wharves,  and  moored  to  these  wharves  are  side-wheel 
steamers  which  once  plied  the  Sound.  It  served  some 
body's  purpose  or  pocket  better  to  discontinue  the  line, 
and  with  its  cessation  and  the  cessation  of  work  in  the 
ship  yards  close  by,  the  old  town  passed  into  a  state 
of  salty  somnolence.  The  harbour  is  glassy  and  still, 
opening  out  to  the  blue  waters  of  the  Sound.  Still  are 
the  white  steamers  by  the  wharves,  where  once  the  gang 
planks  shook  with  the  tread  of  feet  and  the  rumble 
of  baggage  trucks.  Many  a  time,  as  the  train  paused 
at  the  station,  I  have  watched  the  black  stacks  for  some 
hint  of  smoke,  hoping  against  hope  that  I  should  see  the 
old  ship  move,  and  turn,  and  go  about  her  rightful 
seafaring.  But  it  was  never  to  be.  There  were  only 
ghosts  in  engine  room  and  pilot  house.  Like  the 
abandoned  dwelling  on  the  upland  road  to  Monterey, 
these  steamers  were  mute  witnesses  to  a  vanished  order. 
But  always  as  the  train  pulled  out  from  the  station  I 
sat  on  the  rear  platform  and  watched  the  white  town 
and  the  white  steamers  and  the  glassy  harbour  slip  back 
ward  into  the  haze  —  and  it  seemed  as  if  that  haze  was 
the  gentle  breath  of  oblivion. 

I  live  inland  now,  far  from  the  smell  of  salt  water 
and  the  sight  of  sails.  Yet  sometimes  there  comes  over 
me  a  longing  for  the  sea  as  irresistible  as  the  lust  for 
salt  which  stampedes  the  reindeer  of  the  north.  I  must 
gaze  on  the  unbroken  world- rim,  I  must  feel  the  sting 
of  spray,  I  must  hear  the  rhythmic  crash  and  roar  of 
breakers  and  watch  the  sea-weed  rise  and  fall  where  the 
green  waves  lift  against  the  rocks.  Once  in  so  often 


176  WALTER   PRICHARD   EATON 

I  must  ride  those  waves  with  cleated  sheet  and  tugging 
tiller,  and  hear  the  soft  hissing  song  of  the  water  on  the 
rail.  And  "my  day  of  mercy"  is  not  complete  till  I 
have  seen  some  old  boat,  her  seafaring  done,  heeled  over 
on  the  beach  or  amid  the  fragrant  sedges,  a  mute  and 
wistful  witness  to  the  romance  of  the  deep,  the  blue 
and  restless  deep  where  man  has  adventured  in  craft 
his  hands  have  made  since  the  earliest  sun  of  history,  and 
whereon  he  will  adventure,  ardently  and  insecure,  till 
the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time. 


ZEPPELINITIS1 

PHILIP  LITTELL 

Much  reading  of  interviews  with  returning  travellers 
who  had  almost  seen  Zeppelins  over  London,  and  of  wire 
less  messages  from  other  travellers  who  had  come  even 
nearer  seeing  the  great  sight,  had  made  me,  I  suppose, 
morbidly  desirous  of  escape  from  a  city  where  other  such 
travellers  were  presumably  at  large.  However  that  may 
be,  when  Mrs.  Watkin  asked  me  to  spend  Sunday  at  her 
place  in  the  country,  I  broke  an  old  habit  and  said  I'd 
go.  When  last  I  had  visited  her  house  she  worshipped 
success  in  the  arts,  and  her  recipe  was  to  have  a  few 
successes  to  talk  and  a  lot  of  us  unsuccessful  persons  to 
listen.  At  that  time  her  aesthetic  was  easy  to  under 
stand.  "Every  great  statue,"  she  said,  "is  set  up  in 
a  public  place.  Every  great  picture  brings  a  high  price. 
Every  great  book  has  a  large  sale.  That  is  what  great 
ness  in  art  means."  Her  own  brand  of  talk  was  not  in 
conflict  with  what  she  would  have  called  her  then  creed. 
She  never  said  a  thing  was  very  black.  She  never  said 
it  was  as  black  as  the  ace  of  spades.  She  always  said 
it  was  as  black  as  the  proverbial  ace  of  spades.  Once  I 
ventured  to  insinuate  that  perhaps  it  would  be  more 
nobly  new  to  say  "as  black  as  the  proverbial  ace  of 
proverbial  spades,"  but  the  suggestion  left  her  at  peace 
with  her  custom.  Well,  when  I  got  to  her  house  last 
week,  and  had  a  chance  to  scrutinize  the  others,  they 

1  Reprinted  by  permission  from  Books  and  Things,  by  Philip 
Littell.  Copyright  1919,  by  Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe,  Inc. 

177 


178  PHILIP   LITTELL 

did  not  look  as  if  she  had  chosen  them  after  any  particu 
lar  pattern. 

Dinner,  however,  soon  enabled  us  all  to  guess  the 
model  from  which  Mrs.  Watkin  had  striven  to  copy 
her  occasion.  I  was  greatly  relishing  the  conversation 
of  my  left-hand  neighbor,  a  large-eyed,  wondering-eyed 
woman,  who  said  little  and  seemed  never  to  have  heard 
any  of  the  things  I  usually  say  when  dining  out,  and 
who  I  dare  swear  would  have  looked  gratefully  surprised 
had  I  confided  to  her  my  discovery  that  in  the  begin 
ning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth.  Before 
we  were  far  gone  with  food  the  attention  of  this  tactful 
person  was  torn  from  me  by  our  hostess,  whose  voice  was 
heard  above  the  other  voices:  "Oh,  Mr.  Slicer,  do  tell 
us  your  experience.  I  want  all  our  friends  to  hear  it." 
Mr.  Slicer,  identifiable  by  the  throat-clearing  look  which 
suffused  his  bleached,  conservative  face,  was  not  deaf  to 
her  appeal.  He  had  just  returned  from  London,  where 
he  had  been  at  the  time  of  the  Zeppelin  raid,  and  al 
though  he  had  not  himself  been  so  fortunate  as  to  see  a 
Zeppelin,  but  had  merely  been  a  modest  witness  of  the 
sporting  fortitude  with  which  London  endured  that  visita 
tion,  the  Zeppelin-in- chief  had  actually  been  visible  to 
the  brother  of  his  daughter's  governess.  "At  the  noise 
of  guns,"  said  Mr.  Slicer,  "we  all  left  the  restaurant 
where  we  were  dining,  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  George 
Moore,  Asquith,  Miss  Pankhurst  and  I,  and  walked, 
not  ran,  into  the  street,  where  it  was  the  work  of  a 
moment  for  me  to  climb  a  lamp-post,  whence  I  obtained 
a  nearer  view  of  what  was  going  on  overhead.  Nothing 
there  but  blackness."  Instinctively  I  glanced  at  Mrs. 
Watkin,  upon  whose  lips  the  passage  of  words  like  "as 
the  proverbial  ace  of  spades"  was  clearly  to  be  seen. 
"Of  course,"  Mr.  Slicer  went  on,  "I  couldn't  indefinitely 
hold  my  coign  of  vantage,  which  I  relinquished  in  favor 


ZEPPELINITIS  179 

of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  to  whom  at  her  laughing  re 
quest  George  Moore  and  I  gave  a  leg  up.  She  remained 
there  a  few  moments,  one  foot  on  my  shoulder  and  one 
on  Sir  Edward  Carson's  —  she  is  not  a  light  woman  — 
and  then  we  helped  her  down,  Asquith  and  I.  When  I 
got  back  to  my  lodgings  in  Half-Moon  Street  I  found 
that  the  governess's  brother,  who  had  been  lucky  enough 
to  see  a  Zeppelin,  had  gone  home.  I  shall  not  soon  for 
get  my  experience."  This  narrative  was  wonderful  to 
my  left-hand  neighbor.  It  made  her  feel  as  if  she  had 
really  been  there  and  seen  it  all  with  her  own  eyes. 

Mr.  Mullinger,  who  was  the  next  speaker  on  Mrs. 
Watkin's  list,  and  who  had  returned  from  Europe  on  the 
same  boat  with  Mr.  Slicer,  had  had  a  different  experi 
ence.  On  the  evening  of  the  raid  he  was  in  a  box 
at  the  theatre  where  Guitry,  who  had  run  over  from  Paris, 
was  appearing  in  the  little  role  of  Phedre,  when  the  noise 
of  firing  was  heard  above  the  alexandrines  of  Racine. 
"With  great  presence  of  mind,''  so  Mr.  Mullinger  told 
us,  "Guitry  came  down  stage,  right,  and  said  in  quizzi 
cal  tone  to  us:  'Eh  bien,  chere  petite  folle  et  vieux 
marcheur,  just  run  up  to  the  roof,  will  you  please,  and 
tell  us  what  it's  all  about,  don't  you  know/  The  Princess 
and  I  stood  up  and  answered  in  the  same  tone,  'Right-o, 
mon  vieux /  and  were  aboard  the  lift  in  no  time.  From 
the  roof  we  could  see  nothing,  and  as  it  was  raining  and 
we  had  no  umbrellas,  we  of  course  didn't  stay.  When 
we  got  back  I  stepped  to  the  front  of  the  box  and  said: 
'The  Princess  and  Mr.  Mullinger  beg  to  report  that  on 
the  roof  it  is  raining  rain.'  The  words  were  nothing, 
if  you  like,  but  I  spoke  them  just  like  that,  with  a 
twinkle  in  my  eye,  and  perhaps  it  was  that  twinkle  which 
reassured  the  house  and  started  a  roar  of  laughter.  The 
performance  went  on  as  if  nothing  remarkable  had 
happened.  Wonderfully  poised,  the  English."  And  this 


i8o  PHILIP   LITTELL 

narrative,  too,  was  so  fortunate  as  to  satisfy  my  left-hand 
neighbor.  It  made  her  feel  as  if  she  had  been  there  her 
self,  and  heard  all  these  wonderful  things  with  her  own 
ears. 

After  that,  until  near  the  end  of  dinner,  it  was  all 
Zeppelins,  and  I  hope  I  convey  to  everyone  within  sound 
of  my  voice  something  of  my  own  patriotic  pride  in  a 
country  whose  natives  when  abroad  among  foreigners 
consort  so  freely  and  easily  with  the  greatest  of  these. 
No  discordant  note  was  heard  until  the  very  finish, 
when  young  Puttins,  who  as  everybody  knows  has  not 
been  further  from  New  York  than  Asbury  Park  all  sum 
mer,  told  us  that  on  the  night  of  the  raid  he  too  had 
been  in  London,  where  his  only  club  was  the  Athenaeum. 
When  the  alarm  was  given  he  was  in  the  Athenaeum 
pool  with  Mr.  Hall  Caine,  in  whose  company  it  has  for 
years  been  his  custom  to  take  a  good-night  swim. 
"Imagine  my  alarm,"  young  Puttins  continued,  "when 
I  saw  emerging  from  the  surface  of  the  waters,  and  not 
five  yards  away  from  the  person  of  my  revered  master, 
a  slender  object  which  I  at  once  recognized  as  a  minia 
ture  periscope.  I  shouted  to  my  companion.  In  vain. 
Too  late.  A  slim  fountain  spurted  fountain-high  above 
the  pool,  a  dull  report  was  heard,  and  the  next  instant 
Mr.  Hall  Caine  had  turned  turtle  and  was  sinking  rapidly 
by  the  bow.  When  dressed  I  hastened  to  notify  the 
authorities.  The  pool  was  drained  by  noon  of  the  next 
day  but  one.  We  found  nothing  except,  near  the  bottom 
of  the  pool,  the  commencement  of  a  tunnel  large  enough 
for  the  ingress  and  egress  of  one  of  those  tiny  sub- 
mersibles  the  credit  for  inventing  which  neither  Mr. 
Henry  Ford  nor  Professor  Parker  ever  tires  of  giving 
the  other.  I  have  since  had  reason  to  believe  that  not 
one  swimming-pool  in  Great  Britain  is  secure  against 


ZEPPELINITIS  181 

visits  from  these  miniature  pests.    Indeed,  I  may  say, 
without  naming  any  names,"  ...  but  at  this  moment 
Mrs.  Watkin  interrupted  young  Puttins  by  taking  the 
ladies  away.    She  looked  black  as  the  proverbial. 
October,  1915. 


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